


Misconceptions, Illusions, and Lies (and Other Forms of Fair Play)

by pointysparkles



Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dramedy, F/M, Gen, I tried my best but canon makes it hard, Identity Porn, M/M, Multi, No seriously what's the timeline?, Polyamory, Pre-Romance, Slow Burn, Timeline? What Timeline?, but even so it probably won't get much past hand-holding, female characters with agency, friendship fic, humor with angsty undertones, or maybe angst with a thin veneer of humor, this is eventually going to be Ran/Kaito/Shinichi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-01-23 01:30:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21311956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pointysparkles/pseuds/pointysparkles
Summary: A Kaitou KID heist goes wrong in new and interesting ways, and Mouri Ran makes a new friend. Eventually.
Relationships: Kudou Shinich/Mouri Ran, Kudou Shinichi & Mouri Ran, Kuroba Kaito & Kudou Shinichi, Kuroba Kaito/Kudou Shinichi, Mouri Ran & Kuroba Kaito, Mouri Ran/Kuroba Kaito, pre-Mouri Ran/Kuroba Kaito/Kudou Shinichi
Comments: 130
Kudos: 219





	1. Shinichi

**Author's Note:**

> **Manga canon only**, mostly because I've only seen a few episodes of the anime. This means that **Kaito does not know that Conan is Shinichi**. I've been reading fic on and off in this fandom for, like, fifteen years, though, so I'm sure a lot of fanon has crept in here, too. And some things I just find endlessly amusing. ;)
> 
> I'm reconciling the DCMK timeline by assuming Kaito first became KID during his first (out of three) year of high school. The start of the fic takes place some considerable amount of time after the end of the Magic Kaito manga, and sometime before chapter 743 of Detective Conan (the one where Shinichi and Ran go to England). Actually, assume a minor canonically-divergent earthquake shook things up and changed a whole bunch of little things, including causing that rich British lady's cat to run into a different building, so she never met Conan & co., and they never left the country. They went to a Kid heist instead, and then this fic happened. 
> 
> **Rated for language, mature themes, and perhaps slightly more graphic than canon-typical violence. **It could probably pass as a T, but l'd rather be on the safe side.

It started the morning after Kaitou KID’s latest heist. It was a Sunday, and Shinichi woke late enough that the birds were no longer singing and the sunlight that spilled into the room had retreated to the area right underneath the windows. This was unusual in itself; Ran didn't approve of Conan loafing around in the morning, no matter what time he'd gone to bed the night before. She claimed it just encouraged him to stay up late.

Ran's dad was still passed out in an uncomfortable-looking sprawl across his own bed. A couple of his limbs stuck out awkwardly from under the covers, and what was visible of his exposed skin was faintly dyed with bright, lime green splotches. The loud, wheezing rumble of his snores was the only sound disturbing the stillness of the apartment.

Shinichi grimaced as he scratched at some colorful residue on his own skin. He probably should have made more of an effort to clean himself up the previous night, but by the time they'd finally made it home neither he nor Kogoro had been up for anything more than the bare minimum before they'd collapsed into their beds.

The heist hadn't been one of his particular successes. He'd managed to prevent KID from stealing the jewel, technically, but practically everything else about that night was just embarrassing in retrospect. The whole thing made him empathize with Inspector Nakamori a little more than he would have liked.

He made his way into the kitchen, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Evidence of Ran's usual breakfast preparation existed in the form of a series of covered dishes spread across the counter, but Ran herself was nowhere to be seen. Shinichi had to climb a chair in order to be able to reach, but he lifted the lid off of the rice. It was still steaming, very faintly. 

Something was off. Even if Ran had decided to take pity on him and let him sleep in, he would have expected her to be up and about herself. The apartment wasn't big enough to mask her presence in any of the common areas, and she wouldn't have left without letting them know, so she had to be in her bedroom — but she wasn't any more disposed to loafing than she was to encouraging it in anybody else. Besides, if nothing else, it was unlike Ran to make breakfast and not wake anybody up to eat it. 

Shinichi lowered the lid back onto the pot and clambered down off of the chair. He wandered over to Ran's room and called through the door, “Ran-neechan?”

There was a clatter, a thump, a rustle, and an extended pause, before Ran finally replied, “Yes, Conan?”

“Is everything okay?”

Another pause, and the answer, when it came, was a little too high pitched. “Me? Fine — of course I'm fine, why do you ask? Everything's fine!” This was followed by another rustle, and then, as he strained his ears, something that sounded like a frantic whisper, almost inaudible. 

What the hell? Was she not alone in there? Maybe she'd dragged home another stray puppy. The last time had been back when they'd _both_ been in grade school, but she'd managed to keep it hidden from her parents for almost a week.

“Is Dad up?” she asked, still through the door.

“I don't think so. Do you want me to wake him up?”

“No, that's okay,” she answered quickly, laughing nervously. “Let him sleep. I know you guys had a late night last night.” Another giggle, which transitioned to a half-strangled yelp, and then — Shinichi had his ear pressed against the door at this point — and then, yes, those were definitely whispers. Enough was enough.

He reached up for the doorknob even as he asked, brightly, in his best innocent-little-boy voice, “Ran-neechan, can I come in?”

“No, Conan — wait!” was Ran's alarmed reply, but it was too late. He caught a glimpse of a pale, lanky figure with long limbs and rumpled dark hair sitting propped up against the far wall, before Ran, moving with impressive speed, slammed the door in his face, knocking him back a step.

Shinichi didn't know what was going on, exactly, but he felt the adrenaline hit his system. “Ran-neechan,” he asked carefully, his heart pounding in his chest. “Who's that in the room with you?”

There was another short pause, and Shinichi was reaching for the doorknob again by the time the reply came. “It's just Shinichi, Conan.”

Shinichi felt his eyes go wide. “What? Ran, that's not —”

The door opened and Ran squeezed through, shutting it firmly behind her. _At least she's fully dressed_, gibbered a tiny corner of Shinichi's mind, the one that wasn't busy spinning wildly in circles after going from zero to sixty in five seconds. What. The. Hell.

Ran crouched down in front of him and laid a hand gently on his shoulder. “Listen, Conan,” she said intently, staring him right in the eyes, “the truth is that Shinichi came to pick me up for a date this morning — but you know how Dad is, he doesn't really like Shinichi, and I don't want to give him the wrong idea, so I need you to do me a really big favor and not mention it to him, okay? It'll be our secret, okay, Conan?” She gave his shoulder a little squeeze.

Shinichi licked his suddenly dry lips. “Ran-neechan, are you sure that's Shinichi? Because, I mean, I don't think it _can_ be —”

The grip on his shoulder tightened again and she cut him off forcefully and a little too loudly. “What? Of course that's Shinichi! What are you talking about?”

He had no idea what he would have said in reply if the door to Ran's room hadn't opened right then, and out walked — well, later he was going to blame it on a bad combination of sleep deprivation and unexpected stress, but for a second he thought it really_ was_ Shinichi. The grown-up, fully-sized Shinichi, complete with signature cowlick and a faint smirk, dressed in dark pants and a slightly rumpled button-down shirt, with a dark bag slung casually across one shoulder. Then the figure reached down and roughly mussed the hair on Shinichi's head, knocking his glasses askew in the process. “Hey, there, squirt,” he said, and he even _sounded_ like Shinichi, if Shinichi was in the habit of calling himself 'squirt’. Which he wasn't. Because that would be crazy.

Ran giggled nervously again, pulling not-Shinichi away by the elbow. She hooked their arms together and dragged him towards the door. “Well, we have to get going or we'll be late! We have — things! Things to do, that we can't be late for, because — anyway, be good for Dad, Conan! And remember what I said before, okay? Bye now!” Then the door slammed shut behind them, and they were gone.

Shinichi took a moment to mentally gather his wits and pick his jaw off the floor, before running forward and opening the door again. He made a quick mental note of the direction Ran was pulling his doppelganger, before rushing back into the bedroom to find something to change into that wasn't Kamen Yaiba pajamas. 

He was still frantically looking for his left shoe when his phone rang. He tripped over some of the random junk decorating Kogoro's floor before he managed to locate it lying half-underneath his mattress — the phone, not the shoe — and by that time it had stopped ringing. It was his Shinichi phone, not his Conan phone. He hesitated for a second, then navigated to his voicemail.

_“Shinichi?”_ Ran's voice sounded a little breathless. _“Listen, Shinichi, I'm sorry about yesterday, but I need you to do me a favor. If Conan calls you and asks, I need you to tell him you picked me up for a date this morning — window shopping, then some crepes at the park, maybe. I can't tell you why but I just really, really need you to do this for me — I promise it's nothing bad. I know I can count on you, Shinichi. Call me when you get a chance, okay? Thanks.”_

So, there was that. Shinichi tried to figure out if it was better or worse that Ran a hundred percent knew that the guy she was trying to pass off as him wasn't actually him. Either way, he didn't like it. 

He didn't like it _on so many different levels_. 

Who was that guy, why was he impersonating Shinichi, and why the hell was Ran going along with it? Enough so that she now owed him two favors, for lying to and about himself, even. 

The irony wasn't lost on him.

The most obvious answer seemed to be that it was Kaitou KID. Ran had been at the heist yesterday, too, even if she'd left early, so the timing was suggestive, if nothing else, and KID was notoriously a master of disguise. But that raised its own set of questions. What was Ran doing with KID? What was _KID_ doing with _Ran_? Why was KID impersonating _Shinichi_? (And what if he kept doing it? That could lead to a whole other set of problems, if the Black Organization caught wind of it, and Shinichi tried not to think about it too much, because he didn't have time to panic.)

And KID was probably the best case scenario, as a known, relatively benevolent quantity. What if not-Shinichi _wasn't_ KID in disguise? What if it was _Vermouth_, or somebody even more sinister, if such a thing was even possible? At least Vermouth seemed to like Ran, if you could trust that kind of thing coming from a murderous psychopath...

To make matters worse, by the time Shinichi managed to find his other shoe — somehow _outside_ the front door; he must have been even more tired than he'd thought last night — Ran and the impostor were nowhere in sight, and no amount of searching let him pick up their trail. Which wasn't too surprising if it really was KID Ran was with, but somehow the thought didn't bring him any comfort.

He tried calling her back, but it went straight to voicemail, and he hung up before he could accidentally leave something incriminating.

It started drizzling around noon, and by the time he gave up the search and headed back he was cold, wet, tired, hungry, miserable, increasingly paranoid, and still slightly fluorescent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re: Japanese culture: I don't actually know too much about it, but I know I have to be messing up all sorts of stuff. And I apologize for that, but I already have twenty-five years of canon to research, so I don't really want to add more to the pile, or constantly worry about being accurate. If anyone wants to point out any mistakes for my edification, I would appreciate it, but for now just pretend this takes place in an AU where globalization is even more extensive than in the real world.
> 
> I mostly don't use Japanese honorifics, except where I thought it was necessary. And it's possible the distinction is only consistent in my head, so I also apologize for that.


	2. Ran

It started because Shinichi was a big jerk. Was it too much to ask for Ran's supposed _best friend_ to show a little consideration? A little enthusiasm, even, if the situation called for it? She'd called him because she'd been having fun, and she had wanted to share it with him. She'd thought he would have liked hearing about the heist. It was a long shot, because he never seemed to pick up his phone these days — but he had! And she'd been so excited to tell him all about it — and then he'd completely brushed her off!

Stupid detective nerd. Just because nobody was getting murdered didn't mean nothing exciting ever happened. He couldn't be solving cases _all_ of the time, so why did it seem like he never had time for her anymore?

Ran angrily rubbed at her eyes with the side of her wrist. She wasn't going to cry just because Shinichi didn't want to talk to her, that would be ridiculous. She was just going to get some air before she went back inside and found Sonoko again. All of the excitement was over, with Kid come and gone, but these things always seemed to take forever to wrap up. Dad and Conan would want to run around for a while longer trying to figure out how the Kaitou Kid did all his little tricks, and Sonoko would want to gush about the fall of his cape and how dashing he'd looked when he'd swung down from the balcony to land right on top of the head of that booby-trapped decoy display bust Inspector Nakamori had set up. Which had been pretty dashing, admittedly.

Ran bet _Kid_ always picked up his girlfriend's calls. Well, unless he was out stealing things; then he'd probably let it go to voicemail. But he would call back! And actually listen to what she had to say! Not that Ran was Shinichi's girlfriend, officially. But she was the closest thing to a girlfriend he had. 

Or at least she thought she was.

Maybe that was it. Maybe he'd found someone else, and he was just too much of a coward to tell her, and that's why he was avoiding her. It would be one thing if he was abroad and unable to stay in contact, but she kept getting glimpses of him. He would just show up inexplicably, then leave with no word or warning. Or she wouldn't see him at all, but Conan would claim he had been there. Sometimes she'd just see his shadow, or hear his voice. And there was that one time early on when he'd touched her hand in the dark before vanishing without a trace.

It really said something if your not-quite-boyfriend somehow magically turning into his own seven-year-old cousin sometimes seemed like the most reasonable explanation for his odd behavior. As much as she didn't want to admit it, a new secret girlfriend was a much more plausible theory.

Even when he called, Shinichi was uncommunicative, distant, and secretive. He was probably avoiding her because he didn't want to admit that the unspoken something that had always haunted their relationship would finally have to be put to rest, now that he'd found himself some doe-eyed floozy who probably laughed at all his stupid Sherlock Holmes jokes. That coward. He'd always been pretty popular with girls, even if it had taken Ran a while to see the appeal...

Lost in her depressing thoughts, she wandered further away from the main building of the museum in which the heist had been held, deeper into the botanical garden attached to the museum buildings. She could still hear the faint murmur of the dispersing crowd of Kid fans from somewhere nearby, but the area she was in was deserted. It was late enough that the museum would have been closed to the public even if Kid hadn't scheduled a theft, so she probably wasn't supposed to be there either, but being the daughter of the Great Detective Sleeping Kogoro had tohave_ some_ privileges. 

Whatever charm the garden had in daylight was lost in the darkness. There was enough moonlight to get by, but the trees, bushes, and shrubs on either side of the winding path she was on were reduced to dark, blocky shapes, more ominous than anything. She was picking her way around a fallen branch when she heard a loud, sharp thud from further up ahead. 

Maybe there was somebody around after all.

And sure enough, she started to hear voices as she continued onward. Two of them, at least, both male. One loud and rumbling, and the other something lighter and softer, but she couldn't make out the words.

Until she could. 

“I'm going to enjoy putting your body in the ground.” 

Ran felt her blood run cold. 

She had personal experience with enough murders that she didn't waste time wondering if the deeper voice was kidding, or if she was misunderstanding the situation somehow. She just picked up her pace, trying to stay quiet.

“Not so confident now, are you? I should take my time, after all the trouble you've put me through. Really make this hurt.”

The lighter voice said something she couldn't make out, and then the rougher voice replied, “If there's one good thing about your little 'resurrection’ it's that I get to kill you myself this time. Cut you up in enough pieces and I'm sure it'll stick.”

As she crept around a sharp bend in the path, she saw a man standing at the edge of a paved clearing. Most of the details were lost in the dark, but she could see he was facing mostly away from her, holding his arm out toward the center of a small courtyard, with something in his hand, like a gun, but strangely long and bulky — a silencer. 

He was holding a gun with a silencer attached.

And in the center of the clearing, backed up against a large stone fountain, there was a splash of blinding white in the darkness: the Kaitou Kid.

“Maybe I'll leave your mangled corpse right here for your fans to find — y'think your second funeral's gonna be as nice as the first? I hope you didn't have your heart set on an open casket. Might disturb the guests.”

“Do you really think you can get away with that?” Kid’s voice was casual and unconcerned. “The museum building is filled with police.”

The gunman laughed. “By the time that buffoon Nakamori and his trained monkeys make it out here we'll be long gone; you made sure of that. And if not — well, a little collateral damage will just make the Kaitou Kid's last heist all the more dramatic, don't you think?”

“This is between you and me, Snake. Anyone else doesn't need to get involved.”

“You'd like that, wouldn't you? Speaking of which, maybe I should pay that family of yours a visit. I hear the ol’ wifey is off sleeping her way across half the globe, but don't you still have a son knocking about ‘round here somewhere?” The man stepped forward as he talked, his voice filled with relish. Ran followed as silently as she could. “Maybe I'll track him down after I'm done here. Wouldn't want you to get lonely in the afterlife.” 

Ran hesitated. The man, Snake, was big, but she thought she could take him down. The problem was the gun. From what she could make out, he seemed to have his finger on the trigger, and there was every chance the gun would go off if she attacked him. And Kid may be a thief, but she didn't want to get him shot by accident. 

Ran was behind the gunman, but at an angle that would make her plainly visible to Kid. She thought she saw his eyes flicker towards her, but that was the only sign he gave that he was aware of her presence. 

His costume seemed to glow in the moonlight, ethereal as ever, but from this close he looked haggard. He was slouched down and leaning against the stone of the fountain behind him, and a large, dark stain was slowly spreading across the right side of his torso. Blood, probably. There was also a smear of it across the left side of his face, dripping from his hairline. Underneath the blood, what was visible of his face was strangely impassive: the only sign of his trademark grin a faint smirk that hovered around the corners of his lips. Snake's words didn't seem to affect him at all.

Snake growled in frustration. “What, not gonna beg me for your brat's life? I always knew deep down you were as cold as the rest of us. You might put on that fancy getup and pretend to be a _gentleman_, but that didn't stop you from fakin’ your death and running off, did it?” He stopped five paces away from Kid. Close enough that he was very unlikely to miss if he pulled the trigger. “Well, you can look forward to a reunion now. You should have stayed dead, Toichi.” The man's voice turned serious, suddenly less interested in cruelty than getting to the point. “You've outlived your usefulness twice over. This is better than you deserve.” He cocked the gun. It was now or never.

She ran forward, swung her weight around, and aimed a kick right at Snake's head.

Then several things seemed to happen simultaneously: Ran felt the solid impact of her heel against the man's skull; something sprayed against her upper back and arm in scattered pinpricks of pain; Kid lunged towards them, his cape streaming out behind him, his eyes wide with fear. And a shot rang out — or maybe two shots, close together.

Then a flash of white, an impact, and Ran was rolling across the dirt, breathless, the limbs of another body tangled up with her own. Foliage smacked into every inch of her exposed skin, rough and cold, as they rolled further into the bushes. They came to a stop with Ran flat on her back, and the heavy weight of another body pinning her to the ground. 

It was pitch black. 

Before she could start to panic, the weight shifted off of her, but stayed close, and a gloved hand pressed gently across the lower half of her face.

“Shhh, don't move, we're hiding,” Kid whispered, close enough that she could feel his breath against her ear.

“What —” The pressure over her mouth increased slightly.

“Quiet,” Kid admonished gently, his voice completely calm for all that it was barely audible. Ran could feel her heart pounding in her chest. Or maybe that was Kid's heart. They were pressed close enough together that it was hard to tell. “He’s not alone. There’s at least one sniper on the roof opposite. Give me a minute to deal with it.”

It took Ran another moment to realize the reason it was so dark was that the two of them were completely covered by some sort of thin, black fabric. That made sense, if they were hiding, and it explained why Kid was still practically lying on top of her, but it did nothing to alleviate a sudden sense of claustrophobia.

She decided to close her eyes and give herself a moment to process the situation. First random gunmen with silencers, and then snipers. Snipers, if Kid could be trusted. Which was apparently what she was doing right now. She could feel him slowly shifting around next to her.

“You've got a better angle — is he still unconscious?” he whispered. “Is there anyone else out there?” The fabric over her head lifted slightly, and she felt cool, fresh air against her face. She opened her eyes.

If she raised her head she could just barely make out a darker shape slumped against the cobblestones from between the foliage, but the vegetation and the angle of the ground prevented her from seeing anything more than two feet off of the ground or away from the nearest edge of the courtyard.

“I — I don't know. He's not moving, I think,” she whispered. “I don't see anyone else.”

“Alright,” he whispered back, still uncannily calm. “We'll have to risk it.” 

She could feel the back of her dress start to get damp from the cold ground. The front of her dress was also getting damp, and she hoped it was because Kid had gotten splashed by that fountain at some point, and not because he was slowly bleeding out all over her. Then Kid brought one of his hands over by his mouth, took a deep breath, and said, quietly and intently, in a voice completely different than his own, “This is Asami reporting — shots fired in the western auxiliary courtyard! I repeat, shots fired in the western courtyard, by the fountain — requesting backup!” Another breath, and a different voice, this one clipped and slightly nasal. “Team Delta, report to the roof of building C. We've had several reports of sightings, as well as shots fired in an adjacent location. Presume the suspect is armed and dangerous, and proceed with caution. There may be one or more accomplices present.” A few seconds of silence as Kid listened for a response on whatever it was he was using to communicate with the police. “Roger. Again, proceed with caution.” Another deep breath, and Kid resumed his previous whisper. “Okay. That should be enough. Everything still quiet out there?” 

Ran was about to answer in the affirmative when they both heard loud footsteps running up the path Ran had taken earlier, and Kid lowered the sheet back over Ran's face.

“Wait — the sniper!” she whispered urgently. Whoever was arriving was in danger!

The hand was back over her mouth. “Don’t move — trust me! This is no time for you to get shot.” Ran tensed, but remained still, straining her ears.

The running footsteps stopped roughly around where Snake had fallen, then there was a soft curse, and some rustling noises as the newcomer presumably checked him over. “Hey, hey, are you alright?” Some soft clapping noises. “Hey, wake up! Boss, we need to go!”

A loud, drawn-out groan, and then a string of curses in Snake's distinctive voice. “That fucker! I thought I had him! What the fuck happened? Sasaki, report!” 

A moment of silence, during which the sound of Ran's breathing seemed unreasonably loud. Of course the newcomer was with the bad guys, that was just Ran's luck. And if they got discovered now, they would be in a terrible position to defend themselves.

“An accomplice? Who the hell was it? Tell me you shot _one of them_ at least?” Another pause, then more cursing. “And what, they both just fucking disappeared? Fucking useless!”

“Boss?” The newcomer cut in hesitantly. “Someone called in gunshots at this location. We need to leave — they're gonna get here any minute!”

“Alright, let's go. Sasaki, you clear out, too. The last thing we need is for you to be implicated — this is enough of a shitshow already. Ito, double back and see if you can find out anything about this accomplice. Maybe we can get to Kid through him. I'm sick of that bastard always pulling another trick out of his ass…” The voices faded away as the two men left rapidly.

Ran hadn't noticed that Kid was particularly tense until she felt him relax against her. “Well, that was exciting,” he said, and she could hear the grin back in his voice. He slowly pulled away from her, and she shivered as a cool breeze replaced the warm, stuffy air that had been trapped with them underneath the thin, plasticky blanket. Kid helped her up carefully, keeping them both more or less covered by the dark cloth. “Time for us to follow the other actors' example,” he continued quietly, “and exit stage left.” Ran had been allowing Kid to help her regain her balance in the dark, but at this she paused and grabbed onto him, half in surprise and half in some stupid, reflexive need to keep him from running off.

“What? No! We need to stay here and wait for the police.”

Kid's face turned serious again, or so she thought. He was missing his hat, but under the trees it was dark enough that it made no difference. “Ah,” he said delicately. “That might not be the best idea.”

“Kid, this is serious — those men were going to _kill_ you! Besides, you're bleeding. You need the hospital.”

“And I'll soon be bleeding a lot _more_ if I let you take me there.”

“Look, I know you're a thief, but my dad has a lot of connections with the police, he can put in a good word for you. And they can protect you from those men.”

“Can they? Ito Asahi is a lieutenant in the 2nd division. He's been with the Tokyo PD for over eight years.”

“What? Who —” Snake had called the newcomer Ito, she remembered.

“We don't have time for this, we need to move _now_.” He hooked an arm around her waist and tried to physically drag her further into the bushes. 

She resisted. “Fine, you leave! I'll stay here.” The bright beam of a flashlight briefly backlit some of the foliage nearby, cutting through the darkness; more people were coming up the path.

“That won't work either. You heard what they said, they're looking for my accomplice. If the police find you here, Snake will know it was you who helped me — and that little brat of yours would never forgive me if I got you murdered!” 

Ran growled with frustration, but she allowed Kid to pull her backwards through the undergrowth. They stumbled and fought their way through it until they hit a stone wall, about eight feet high, that presumably bordered the property. It was easier to walk alongside it, since the area right next to it was relatively clear of vegetation. As they continued on, however, it got increasingly less clear whether Kid was still holding on to her because they needed to stay close so they could both fit beneath the dark fabric, or because he needed the support. His other hand trailed along the wall, and he had to catch himself after a stumble with increasing frequency. 

Ran adjusted her own grip on Kid's waist and tried not to think about the way he flinched. She tried not to think about the sticky wetness under her palm, and what she would do if Kid dropped dead on her. She tried to reassure herself that he hadn’t lost _that_ much blood — there was a lot of it in the human body — but people could die from a lot more than just blood loss. His breathing was pretty heavy for how slowly they were moving, especially considering how athletic he had to be to pull off some of his stunts. 

She wished she had worn better shoes. The ground here was soft, and her feet kept on sinking down into the dirt. At least they were flats — she couldn't imagine trying to do this in stilettos.

Eventually Kid called a halt to their plodding march and pulled away from her. “Well, my lovely accomplice, I'm afraid this is where we must part ways. There's a door about ten feet ahead, and from there it should be easy enough to make your way to the train station, or perhaps to pick up a cab.”

Ran frowned. “What about you? What are you going to do?”

“What a Phantom Thief does best, of course: disappear in the wind.” 

It was hard to take his blithely casual tone at face value, however, when the wall behind him was clearly the only thing holding him up at this point. 

“No.”

Maybe if he wasn't listing slowly sideways. 

“Pardon?”

“I said 'no.’ You're not going to 'disappear in the wind.’ For one thing, you need medical attention, and if you —" She paused, hesitating, but she couldn't in good conscience abandon him in the condition he was in, even if he was a thief. "If you don't want to go to the hospital, then I have a first-aid kit at home.”

He didn't say anything for a moment, and she strained to make out his expression through the gloom. When he finally spoke, his tone was full of what had to be deliberate condescension. “It's sweet of you to worry, fair lady, but I'll be fine.” It was infuriating.

She fought to keep her voice level. “You look like you're about to pass out.”

“That's not from blood loss, don't worry. I'm not that injured. I was just drugged, earlier, and the adrenaline is starting to wear off.” He said this more sincerely, with a matter-of-fact sort of earnestness, as if he really expected it to ease her mind. 

He finally tilted far enough that he started to overbalance, and had to take a step sideways to compensate. He tried to turn the motion into some sort of fancy half-bow, but ended up fumbling awkwardly for a hat he'd apparently forgotten he wasn't wearing.

Ran boggled. “Like that's any better!” 

He visibly twitched, and made an exaggerated shushing motion. “My, Mouri-san, you're taking this accomplice thing a little far, don't you think? Have you forgotten that I'm a criminal? I assure you I don't intend to repent my evil ways anytime soon — and accessory charges to grand theft can be pretty serious, or so I've heard.”

“I told you, my dad has connections. I haven't done anything wrong, except maybe not staying for the police, and they'll understand when I explain the situation. And you're right, you _are_ a criminal — so I'm not letting you out of my sight!” 

Why was she letting Kid run the show, anyway? Underneath the mystique, the man was clearly a disaster. 

“Who were those men?” she demanded. “Why were they trying to kill you? Did you steal something from them? That man, Snake, he said — is your family in danger? I really think you should come with me to see the police. I know you said one of them was an officer, but if I explain the whole thing to Inspector Megure, he'll believe me, and Ito-san will be arrested. My dad's a great detective — I know a lot of great detectives. I'm sure they could find some evidence.” She tried to infuse as much sincerity as she could into her voice. “But that means you have to explain it to _me_. Whatever all this is about, whatever trouble you're in, the police can help. _I_ can help.” 

After that impassioned plea, Ran felt herself run out of steam. “Wouldn't it be worth it, to get those men off the streets — to protect people?” she continued less confidently. “Maybe — maybe you could even get a reduced sentence, as a witness. I heard you return most of the things you steal, so it wouldn't be so bad, right?” But even as she said it she could hear the naive optimism in her own voice. She bit her lip to force herself to stop talking.

He didn't reply for a long moment. She tried to read his face, but even standing two feet away from him, between the monocle, the blood, the darkness, and his habitual inscrutability, it was a lost cause.

“That's a tempting offer, Mouri-san,” he said finally, slowly, his voice as expressionless as his face, “and maybe if I was sure that Ito Asahi was the only mole they have in the Tokyo PD I would take you up on it. But I _know_ he's not. As it is, it really would be best if you forgot about this whole thing. It doesn't have anything to do with you, Mouri-san, and I would hate for you to get hurt just because you're a good samaritan.”

“There is no way I am letting this go. If you don't want to come with me, I'll just talk to Inspector Megure by myself.”

“And I already told you, if you tell the police you were involved with what happened today, Snake and his ilk _will_ find out about it. That would only put you in danger.”

“Maybe I'm okay with that!”

“Maybe I'm not!” he hissed, frustrated.

After that brief display of actual emotion, Kid seemed to visibly gather himself, and when he continued it was with his typical measured calm. “I apologise, Mouri-san, but I must insist. If I promise to explain the situation more fully at a later date, will you agree not to contact the police before then? We really shouldn't stay here much longer.”

Ran bit her lip. Maybe it was all the detectives rubbing off on her, but she really wanted to know what was going on, and this could be her best chance to get Kid to talk. “Fine. But you're coming home with me. You can stay in my room, and explain things in the morning.”

“I didn't think you were that kind of girl, Mouri-san. We've barely met, and already you're inviting me into your bedroom? What will your father think?”

Ran felt her face heat, but hoped it wasn't visible in the darkness. If he thought he could fluster her just with some vague innuendo, he'd need to think again. “Nobody ever goes in my room except me, so you'll be fine. If my dad does find out, you won't be Kaitou Kid, you'll just be my secret older boyfriend. And I can afford to get in trouble for that.” Dad had no room to talk, anyway, with the way he constantly chased after women who were sometimes barely older than she was.

Ran had the satisfaction of rendering the Kaitou Kid momentarily speechless, before he sighed and capitulated. “Okay. But for the record, this is a terrible idea.” Then he reached down and fumbled at something at his waist. It took her a moment to realize he was _taking off his pants_, and by that point she had to reach out to catch his elbow to stop him from overbalancing again. She made a strangled sound and turned her face away. It must have been flaming red by now.

Kid chuckled, leaning into her hold as he slid his trousers over his shoes and stepped out of them. “I appreciate the courtesy, Mouri-san, but it's alright. You can look.”

Despite her mortification, Ran's curiosity got the better of her. She looked.

It was hard to make out, but what Kid wore under his shiny white pants was… a second pair of pants. Something like black skinny jeans, maybe. She didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

Kid chuckled again as he quickly undid his tie and slipped out of his white jacket. He bundled all of it together, and walked a few paces over, crouching down and feeling around in the bushes before pulling out a small, black duffel bag. He stuffed the lumpy wad of white and black cloth into the bag, and pulled something else out. A dim light of some sort, and a compact mirror. He quickly looked himself over, wiping most of the blood off of his face and undoing a couple of the buttons by his collar, before shining the light on her. She must have passed muster, because he turned it off without saying anything. Then he pulled out a small vial, unscrewed the top, and dumped the contents down his front.

Ran wrinkled her nose. “I take it you're my _drunk_ older boyfriend now.”

“You catch on quick, Mouri-san.” He got back up, only wobbling a little, and walked another couple of paces along the wall, to what looked like an old service access door. A moment's fiddling with the heavy padlock keeping it closed, and he was holding the door open for her.

They exited onto a deserted back road, made their way through a narrow alley between two buildings, and suddenly they were back in civilization. Ran let out a sigh of relief. 

One of the buildings bordering the alley they'd emerged from turned out to be a pizzeria, one that was open late. A group of college-aged girls sat munching away and laughing nearby, and a large, home-made replica of Kid's caricature grinned out at her from a poster board leaning against their table. A steady stream of pedestrians passed them on the sidewalk.

Ran looked at her watch. It had only been twenty, maybe thirty minutes since she'd left the museum building. The thought was surreal.

“Okay, let me just text Sonoko, and then I'll call a cab to take us back to my place.” She patted around at her pockets, and felt her stomach drop at the thought that her phone must have fallen out while she’d been rolling around in the bushes. Then Kid cleared his throat next to her, and passed it over.

“Thanks,” she said, before she realized he must have taken it away from her at some point, and added, “you jerk.” 

She chose not to make an issue of it, however, and quickly texted Sonoko, Conan, and her dad to let them know she'd gotten lost in the crowd and was making her way home by herself, emphasizing that Conan wasn't with her. She didn't trust her dad not to drive home without him if she didn't explicitly remind him.

That taken care of, she set about procuring them some transportation.

“Okay, the cab should be here in around fifteen —” She looked up, and got a clear, adequately-lit look at Kid's face for the first time. Her mind blanked. “Why are you dressed up as Shinichi?” she asked, bewildered. 

Then she started to get angry. “What is this? Why are you — is this some sort of weird attempt to emotionally manipulate me?”

“I assure you, this disguise is in no way for your benefit. I had no occasion to switch faces since I met up with you, and I had _no intention_ of meeting up with you,” he said, and it was disconcerting to see Shinichi's face combined with the Kaitou Kid's cadence and mannerisms. Shinichi was terrible at impressions. “Besides,” Kid continued, “this isn't even Kudou Shinichi. It's a different, completely unrelated young man that just happens to share an unfortunate resemblance to him.”

“So you expect me to believe that there's someone out there that looks _that much_ like Shinichi, and you just happened to be impersonating him?”

“Yes,” he said firmly, but also like he was bracing himself for a negative reaction.

Ran considered him. He looked pretty terrible, actually. Like Shinichi, but like Shinichi after he'd stayed up all night for a particularly difficult case, only to realize that not only did he still have to go to school the following morning, but that he'd also run out of coffee. His clothes were dark enough that it didn't show up too badly, but she knew he had to be covered in at least as much dirt as she was, and his hair was matted. He was carrying the duffel bag slung casually across his shoulder in a way that just happened to cover the large bloodstain on his side, and his slumped shoulders and the way he was swaying slightly even when standing in place made for a very convincing drunk. Logistics aside, he didn't look like he had the energy to be messing with her. “Okay,” she said.

He blinked, nonplussed. “Okay?”

“I guess Shinichi just has one of those faces. You — or whoever that's supposed to be,” she said, gesturing at his face, “you wouldn't be the first doppelganger of his I've come across.”

“That’s very understanding of you, Mouri-san. You're full of surprises. Kudou Shinichi is a lucky man.”

Ran frowned, remembering her earlier dark thoughts. “I'm not sure Shinichi feels that way. But what about you?” She asked, to distract herself, and also because Sonoko would find this relevant. “Do you have a girlfri-” She broke off, suddenly remembering what Snake had said about Kid's wife.

“Ah.” Sure enough, Kid sounded as if the subject pained him. “Not as such, no.”

Ran didn't know how to respond to that. She regretted bringing up such a sensitive topic. If what Snake said was true — she couldn't imagine it: getting married, having a baby, and then faking your death and abandoning them, for whatever reason. But then she also couldn't imagine what might motivate someone to dress all in white, taunt the police, and stage elaborate heists to steal multi-million-dollar jewels, only to give them back a few days later. 

They stood in awkward silence for the fifteen minutes it took for the cab to get there. Or at least Ran thought it was awkward. Kid looked like he was fully occupied slowly losing a battle with unconsciousness. She really hoped he was right about not being that injured.

The ride home was equally quiet. Kid mumbled out a few semi-incoherent apologies to her for tripping and pulling her down with him and getting her dress dirty, clearly for the driver's benefit, who side-eyed them a little less after that. Kid finally passed out with his head on her shoulder, but she thought that was genuinely unintentional.

She wasn't feeling so hot herself. Her back ached, and she got the feeling she'd be covered in bruises tomorrow. And her heart was still pounding away in her chest, despite the danger being long over. Unlike Kid, she was wide awake.

It was a relief to finally make it home. She shook Kid awake, and they stumbled up the stairs. She bustled him through her room and into her bathroom, told him to wait there, and went to find the first aid kit. They kept it under the sink in the main bathroom. It was a large, bulky box; Conan was so trouble-prone that they'd had to stock up after he'd moved in with them.

By the time she made it back Kid had his shirt off, his own ziplock bag of medical supplies out, and was dabbing at his side with a damp, rolled-up wad of toilet paper. Ran winced. Toilet paper wasn't sterile, was it?

She dug around in her box and passed over a large bottle of disinfectant. Kid thanked her, and immediately soaked a fresh wad of toilet paper. That was slightly better, maybe? She found a thick roll of gauze and gave him that to use instead.

The wound itself was a three-inch gash right below his ribs. A bullet graze, maybe. In any case, it didn't look too deep, and had already mostly stopped bleeding. Kid would be alright, as long as he didn't develop an infection.

More concerning were the bruises covering half his torso. Most of them were red, bright and fresh, clearly the result of whatever had happened to him today. But a big one on his shoulder was dark purple, and he had a few smaller yellow ones scattered around. 

He was surprisingly thin, too. Clearly athletic, but built much slimmer than she would have expected.

She probably _should_ have expected it, though. He'd impersonated various women often enough in the past — most notably Ran herself — and passed well enough that _Conan'd_ had a hard time telling the difference. And while Ran was tall for a girl, and muscular, she didn't have a particularly broad frame. Kid did always look much bigger in that white costume of his, but that was mostly the hat and the cape. Besides, the actual suit must have had extra space built into it for all the stuff he would need to carry with him. She wasn't an expert on magic, but she knew it necessitated the use of a lot of props. And a thief would probably need even more.

After Kid had disinfected the wound to his satisfaction, he sealed it up with a neat row of butterfly bandages, while Ran hovered over him awkwardly. She felt like she should be doing more to help, but Kid seemed like he knew what he was doing, toilet paper aside. Once the gash was closed, he taped a few layers of gauze over it, and then a layer of clear plastic over that.

Ran frowned. “What's that for? Wouldn't it be better to let the wound breathe?” She was pretty sure that was a thing.

“It's to keep the blood from soaking through,” Kid replied, and then blinked slowly, like Shinichi sometimes did when he suddenly realized his coffee cup was empty after trying to take a sip. “Besides, I'll be able to shower now without getting it wet.”

“Right,” Ran said, straightening up. She felt a new surge of energy with something practical to accomplish. “You do that, and I'll go set up the spare futon for you.”

“Wait a minute, Mouri-san. We still have to check you over.”

“What? I'm fine.”

“You have blood on your arm,” he said, and sure enough, the thin sleeve of her dress on her left side was torn in several places, and blood speckled the material.

“Oh.” It didn't look that bad, nothing like how big Kid's wound had been, but now that Ran looked at it she could feel the sting of the little scrapes.

“I think it’s from gravel thrown back by the bullet hitting the pavement. There's a few spots on your back, too, but it looks like it was mostly protected by the thicker fabric. I can clean those out for you, but you're going to have to take off your top,” he said apologetically. “I'm afraid the dress is ruined.”

“Oh,” Ran said again, stupidly. Then gathered herself. “No, that's okay — it's not one of my favorites. I would appreciate the help, thank you, Kaitou-san.”

Kid smiled brilliantly at her. “Please, Mouri-san, I feel like I've known you for years, and you _did_ save my life tonight. Please, call me Kid.”

“Kid-san, then.” Ran felt her face heat up, and turned away under the pretense of fumbling with the zipper on the side of her dress. She didn't let herself think about it too much; she was wearing a bra, so it wasn't really any different from being at the beach.

Besides, it was stupid. If Kid felt like he knew her, it was probably from stalking her way back when he'd first impersonated her on Sonoko's family's ship. That was creepy, not flattering, Ran assured herself. She slipped her arms out of her sleeves and let the fabric pool down around her hips.

“This doesn't look so bad. None of these need stitches, but I do have to get the bits of dirt out. This is probably going to sting a little.”

It did sting, though Ran could tell he was trying to be gentle. The disinfectant felt cold against her skin, and his fingers felt hot in contrast. She hadn't noticed before, but he must have taken his gloves off at some point.

He finished off by covering her scrapes with some large bandaids, pressing firmly on the edges all the way around.

“These are waterproof, so you should be fine to shower as long as you don't scrub at them.”

“Okay, but you go first,” Ran said, slipping back into her sleeves and pulling the dress up, though she didn't bother with the zipper. “I'll go get the futon.” Then she left the bathroom in a very calm and measured manner that could in no way be called fleeing.

It was lucky they'd gotten another spare futon after Conan had moved in, or one of them would have had to sleep on the floor. She set it up across the room from her own bed, then went to fetch some of her dad's pajamas, which she passed to Kid through the door. 

He was still half-naked when he came out, rubbing his hair dry, apparently completely unashamed. She slipped past him, shut the door firmly, and resolved to forget about everything and just enjoy her shower. 

* * *

He was asleep by the time she came out. It didn't look intentional. He was sprawled out on the guest futon with the towel still half-around his shoulders and the pajama top around one arm, as if he'd passed out halfway through putting it on. All of the lights were still on.

She walked over and knelt down next to him, taking advantage of the opportunity to stare at his face. He really did look a lot like Shinichi, enough so that she might have mistaken one of them for the other if she didn't have the liberty to study him at length from close up. Shinichi had been gone for long enough that she’d been afraid she was starting to forget his face, so she was relieved to find she was still able to pick out little differences in Kid's. His nose was a touch longer and more delicate than Shinichi's, and his overall face a bit softer. More like Shinichi from a year ago than from the last time she'd seen him. And the eyebrows: Shinichi's weren't bushy by any means, but Kid's were a little more refined. Maybe he plucked them. He crossdressed enough that she wouldn't put it past him, and he didn't seem like the type to skimp on the details. She remembered their first encounter, after he'd drugged her and put her in that lifeboat, and the lingerie set Conan had brought her along with that copy of her dress — ironically, it'd been much nicer than anything she'd actually been wearing. He must shave his legs, too, she thought, though he naturally didn't seem all that hairy. 

She didn't check. She was getting off track.

Kid's hair, now that it was clean and mostly dry, was obviously wrong, too. It was a shade too light, too long, and the wrong texture — it looked poofier, somehow. She resisted the urge to run her hand through it. Shinichi's hair was composed of thick, surprisingly silky strands, but she didn't actually need to know if the floofiness of Kid's was because it was coarser or denser or just more staticky. Besides, it might wake him up, and she wasn't done yet.

He had a short cut just below his hairline, held together by two butterfly closures. She used a single finger to gently push his bangs out of the way. He had bruising developing all around the cut. 

It really didn't look like he was wearing a mask at all. There were no seams anywhere, and she could see all his little pores. There was a bead of residual moisture making its way down from his hairline, and she tracked it's progress closely. She could see the hairs in Kid's nose.

It didn't even look like he was wearing any makeup. Ran didn't habitually wear makeup herself, but she'd done so enough in the past that she thought she knew what it looked like. Kid couldn't really be that much better at applying it than she was, could he?

Very cautiously, she gently poked the skin of his cheek. It felt warm and soft and very skin-like. It gave easily under a little bit of pressure.

She jerked back when Kid moved suddenly, but he only brought a hand up to scrub roughly at his cheek before turning slightly and falling still again.

Ran waited a few more seconds, then let out a silent breath and leaned in again. The skin looked a little pinker than before, but like it was the result of friction increasing blood flow, not like anything had been rubbed off. She checked her finger for residue. Nothing.

Could this really be what Kid really looked like? If he'd showered, it stood to reason he'd have to reapply his disguise afterwards, and that bag of his had looked mostly empty when he'd pulled it out of the bushes. Was it all just a bluff?

It wouldn't be out of character for him, she thought, and it was probably just as likely that Kid himself happened to look uncannily similar to Shinichi as it was that some random stranger he was impersonating did, and she'd been willing enough to believe that.

Shouldn't Kid have been older, though? He looked her age, if not younger. Probably still in high school. It didn't add up.

Ran tried to find some answers in his sleeping face, but no answers presented themselves. Maybe it was just that she'd never had much opportunity to watch Shinichi sleep, but when she looked at Kid now, his face relaxed in sleep, he reminded her of Conan more than anything.

But looks could be deceiving. Even Conan was closer to a little hellion than the angel he occasionally tried to make himself out to be. 

Moving decisively, Ran pulled out her phone, opened the camera app, and carefully focused in on Kid's face, making sure to focus on the uninjured side and to crop out all of the bruises on his chest. He still had a little red spot along the side of his nose from where the monocle must have gotten mashed into his face at some point, but it wasn't too noticeable.

She took the picture.

After a moment’s deliberation, she sent it to Sonoko, along with the caption “_look at this old photo of Shinichi I found! Isn't he cute? <3_.” 

There. Nice and innocuous, but good luck to Kid if he thought he could get that photo back just by stealing her phone again. There wasn't anything truly embarrassing about the picture — Kid wasn't drooling or anything — but Shinichi would have been embarrassed by it anyway, and Sonoko took potential blackmail seriously. She'd never really warmed up to Shinichi.

And Ran was fully prepared to blackmail Kid, if he went back on his word, or if she didn't like what he had to say.

She thought back to that confrontation with the man called Snake and tried to make sense of it all, in light of Kid's apparent age. He definitely didn't look old enough to have a kid of his own. A toddler, maybe. She didn't remember exactly what Snake had said, but she'd gotten the impression the child was supposed to be older. The mother was abroad, but the child was supposed to be in Japan, presumably alone.

She wondered if some poor innocent family was in danger because Snake mistakenly thought the father was the Kaitou Kid. Or maybe Kid was only being shot at because Snake was mistakenly convinced that someone he had a grudge against was moonlighting as the Moonlight Magician? 

Or maybe Snake had it right, and Kid was just a lot older than he looked. She didn't remember the dates exactly, but she knew Kid was supposed to have been inactive for a handful of years, and active for a few years before that. Long enough to get a reputation internationally. So he was supposed to be, what, thirty? Forty? Forty was old enough to have a teenaged son. She remembered that Conan had said that Kid looked young after the first time he'd met him — but that only meant that he _looked_ it. 

And speaking of Conan, this wasn't the first time she'd wondered if someone was mysteriously much older than they appeared.

It was a crazy theory. She knew it was a crazy theory.

But she made a mental note to ask Kid some leading questions tomorrow anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out [this amazing, adorable artwork](https://mirror-mask-zone.tumblr.com/post/188942270759/why-was-she-letting-kid-run-the-show-anyway) that [Wildcard1412](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wildcard1412) drew of a scene in this chapter!


	3. Kaito

It started with an eighty gram lump of solid corundum: a vividly honey-gold oval with exceptional clarity, cushion cut, set in filigreed platinum. Very shiny, very sparkly, and very expensive. Not Pandora.

Sometimes Kaito wondered what the hell he was doing. 

It had seemed simple when he'd started out. Not easy, because nothing about this was _easy_. But simple. He would (1) take up the mantle of KID the Phantom Thief, (2) draw out his father's killers, and (3) bring them to Justice. Finding and destroying Pandora had made its way in there somewhere as a secondary objective, but his overall plan had remained the same.

Only now he was starting to think he really should have put more thought into what came between steps two and three.

Winging it was all well and good — a good magician had to know how to improvise — but there was only so many times you could end up with a gun pointed at your head before you had to admit that your fundamental strategy might need some work.

He'd almost had a heart attack when he'd first glimpsed Mouri Ran sneaking up behind Snake. Just another disastrous complication in a whole string of them; the heist had been a mess from start to finish. First Jii-chan had broken his leg right after he'd sent out the heist note — not an insignificant injury for someone his age. With Jii in the hospital, Kaito had been left scrambling to rework his part of the plan into something that would work without the aid of an assistant. That had gone rather well, actually, all things considered — if you didn't count the fact that he hadn't gotten any sleep since about thirty-six hours before the start of the heist — and he liked to think he hadn't disappointed his fans with his performance. Then KID’s tiniest and most vicious detective had shown up, which would have normally been a plus, but he'd zigged when he should have zagged, and ended up with a needle in his arm. Thankfully he'd deliberately built up enough of a resistance to various sedatives that whatever had been on that needle hadn't put him down immediately, but he'd definitely felt the effects. Still, he'd already gotten the jewel at that point, and checked it against the moonlight, and after that whether he managed to retain possession of it or not became inconsequential.

His escape had gotten a little complicated. Plans A through C had fallen through, and he'd ended up having to implement an improvised hybrid of plans D and F. He'd left more mayhem behind him than he generally preferred, but luckily the glow-in-the-dark dye he'd repurposed was nontoxic, and there hadn't been anything particularly fragile in that room. You had to really _try_ in order to damage most gemstones. He did feel a little bad for that miniature poodle, but it would recover from the shock eventually. Needs must.

And then, just when he'd thought he was home free, cruising away just above the treetops, someone had shot a hole in his glider. The crash had been unpleasant, to say the least.

Then Snake had cornered him by that fountain. Which, on the one hand, was good, because finding out more about him and his cronies was the whole reason he was doing this. But on the other hand, there was the gun, pointed right at his head. And the sniper. Which had seriously limited his ability to maneuver.

And then: Mouri Ran.

He liked to think he would have managed to make his escape even if she hadn't interfered. He hadn't had a plan, specifically, but he was sure he would have come up with something. Probably. Or he might have gotten his brains blown out.

Mouri Ran hadn't seemed to even notice any of the hints he'd tried to warn her off with. Her high kick had been very impressive, though. Usually if he was in danger of discovery from a female bystander, his first recourse was charm, but there was a reason knockout gas had always seemed like the more prudent option with Mouri Ran. Between her physical skills and overprotective nature and _Conan_, risk management had always been a priority.

It had worked out in his favor this time, though. Mostly.

KID wondered if Mouri-san realized she was basically holding her own life hostage against him. He probably would have argued with her more last night if he hadn't been so tired. As it was, the whole heist and its aftermath was a haze of pain, fear, and adrenaline in his memory. More so than usual, that is, and with more exhaustion and less euphoria mixed in.

He'd crashed hard afterwards. Mouri Ran's earnest faith in humanity and the police and her own father had reminded him of Aoko, and he'd probably let his guard down too much as a result. Especially considering he couldn't even let his guard down around Aoko.

Actually, it was pretty pathetic, but what stood out in Kaito's memory about that evening wasn't the heist, or his confrontation with Snake, or the sniper — he'd been shot at before, and he hadn't even managed to gain any new information this time — it was the fact that the time he'd spent with Mouri Ran was the longest continuous interval he'd spent in close physical contact with another person in... he didn't even know how long. Since before his dad had died, probably.

He'd never had a lot of friends, and his relationship with Aoko had been slowly deteriorating ever since he'd become KID. And really, their friendship had always been based more on physical violence than physical affection, anyway.

He hadn't been lying when he'd told Ran that it wasn't intentional, but he did think that his strange resemblance to Kudou Shinichi made her much more willing to touch him than she would have been otherwise, however unconsciously. It was hard not to feel jealous. And then he felt petty and even more pathetic for feeling jealous. 

It was his own fault he couldn't manage normal human relationships, wasn't it?

He couldn't actually remember falling asleep. If he'd had time to think about it, he might have considered sneaking out in the middle of the night, but Mouri-san woke before he did, so the point was moot. She even brought him breakfast, which was very gracious of her.

It was very good. He made a mental note to brush up on his own cooking skills, and tried not to feel naked with his real face bare for all the world to see. He had probably been spending too much time on infiltration lately, if going without a disguise made him this uncomfortable. Then again, he was supposed to be KID right now, not Kaito, and it made perfect sense for KID to feel exposed. He really hoped Mouri-san bought that this was a disguise. In retrospect he should have gone with the idea that he was impersonating Kudou Shinichi. No matter how awkward that would have been in the short term, it would have raised less questions in the long term. After all, there was no way he actually _was_ Kudou, so he _must_ be wearing a mask, right? Too late now. 

He was so screwed.

He complimented her cooking, and received a gratifyingly pleased reaction.

He tried to remember everything he knew about Mouri Ran. Seventeen-years-old, regional karate champion, a good but not outstanding student. Best friends with Suzuki Sonoko. The daughter of up-and-coming PI “Sleeping” Mouri Kogoro, and de-facto guardian to one Edogawa Conan (those last two facts were not unrelated, but Kaito didn't think Ran was aware of that). Childhood friends (with romantic overtones) with High School Detective Kudou Shinichi, who had mysteriously fallen out of the public eye for the last year or so. He'd done research on her before he'd ever even met her, and he still knew her mannerisms and the timbre of her voice well enough to be able to impersonate her at a moment's notice. She'd been on the periphery of every heist Suzuki Jirokichi had ever challenged him to, and a few more besides, so it had seemed prudent to check in every once in a while to keep up to date, especially since she was so close to that sharp-eyed, creepy little brat of a detective. Kaito had a whole host of random trivia about her memorized: significant dates and the names of acquaintances and whatever random personal details he'd managed to coax or trick out of her classmates. Objectively, he knew a lot about Mouri Ran.

He felt completely unprepared. 

She seemed so straightforward, but he'd just barely managed to keep her from going to the cops the night before, and the situation he'd ended up in was dangerously precarious. He hadn't been at his best last night, true, but most people were really not that hard to manipulate.

He needed to find out what she already knew, secure her cooperation, and get out of here, _fast_, before something else went wrong. He needed to call his mom and warn her about Snake's threats, just in case, and he needed to update the security system at the house. He needed to check in with the police to see how much of what had happened last night had been discovered, and how much had been covered up again, and by whom. He needed to analyze (and possibly replicate) the sedative from the needle Conan had stuck him with last night. He needed to do his history homework.

He really, really needed not to be exposed and/or arrested. This would be so much easier if he could trust Mouri Ran not to go off and get herself killed. Snake had never seemed all that concerned about witnesses, but he also never hesitated when it came time to pull the trigger. And some of his compatriots seemed much more thorough about eliminating complications. 

“Ran-neechan?” Conan's childish voice suddenly rang out through the door, startling Ran so badly she almost overbalanced from where she'd been leaning over to gather up the dishes. The chopsticks rattled loudly against the china, and Kaito quickly caught her forearm to stop her from dropping them completely, but the quick movement knocked a book off of a nearby table. They both winced.

“It's okay, he never comes in here,” Ran whispered as she carefully set the dishes back down, but she sounded like she was trying to convince herself, staring at him with wide eyes.

KID raised a questioning eyebrow. There was no way Conan hadn't heard _something_ through the door. One of them was going to have to answer. “Would you like me to…?” he whispered, gesturing to the door. Mouri-san's eyes went even wider, but she seemed stunned, like the proverbial deer in headlights.

So he cleared his throat quietly, and pulled out his best Mouri Ran impression. “Yes, Conan?”

She wasn't appreciative, if the way she immediately lunged at him and slapped a hand over his mouth was any indication.

“Is everything okay?” Conan's voice sounded innocently concerned.

KID stared pointedly at Ran from over her hand. She licked her lips, then stuttered her way through a response wholly unconvincing in its casualness. “Me? Fine — of course I'm fine, why do you ask? Everything's fine!”

Kaito cringed internally. He tried to remove Ran's hand, but she just braced herself on his shoulder and gripped his face harder. He tried leaning backward away from her, but she was stubborn, and eventually they both tipped over onto the futon. Kaito bit back a yelp as Ran's elbow landed on his ribs. At least that was his mostly uninjured side.

“One of us is going to have to talk to him,” he whispered, taking advantage of their tumble to pry her hand off.

“Yes, me!” she hissed. “I can do it. You don't have to talk _for_ me.”

“Alright, then.” He nodded agreeably, and gestured towards the door. “Go ahead.”

She worried her bottom lip with her teeth, suddenly less offended and more uncertain. “But what do I say?”

“Anything.”

“Anything?” she whispered urgently. “That's not as helpful as you seem to think!”

“It doesn't matter, just distract him. Look, just let me —” He switched voices and asked out loud, “Is Dad up?”

“I don't think so,” Conan's piping voice replied. “Do you want me to wake him up?” Not good; that definitely sounded a little suspicious.

Ran didn't give Kaito a chance to continue. “No, that's okay,” she said, which was fine, but then she ruined it by giggling randomly. “Let him sleep. I know you guys had a late night last night.” She did it again. He'd never heard Mouri Ran giggle so much. He poked her side to try to get her to stop. That was a mistake; she yelped and elbowed him back reflexively. On his bad side, this time.

“You are a terrible liar, Mouri-san,” he breathed out through gritted teeth. “We need to leave.”

She huffed, finally righting herself and pulling away from him. “He's a little kid. He's not going to suspect anything.”

“He's a detective, isn't he?”

She bit her lip again, looking conflicted. She had a very expressive face. “Okay, then let's —”

But it was too late. Suspicion had apparently outweighed propriety in the little detective's mind, and the door opened just as he announced his intention to enter.

Ran could move impressively fast when the occasion called for it. Kaito only caught a glimpse of tiny colorful pajamas and big eyes behind bulky spectacles, before Ran had the door slammed shut again. She leaned back against it, holding it closed with her weight, and they exchanged wide-eyed looks.

“Ran-neechan,” Conan called through the door, his voice sounding painfully young. “Who's that in the room with you?”

She didn't break eye contact with Kaito as she replied, “It's just Shinichi, Conan.”

Conan made an alarmed response, and Ran sent Kaito a pointed look before she slipped out the door. He took that as his cue to act.

He'd rinsed his shirt the night before, and most of the blood had washed out. It looked a little sloppy, but conceivably like something Kudou Shinichi might wear. Maybe. The only spare shirt he had was way too casual, so he'd just have to remember to keep the stain covered.

He pulled out a bottle of hair gel and set to work on his hair. He'd practiced this before, because it would be a shame to let such a natural resemblance go to waste, but hadn't had occasion to use it yet. There was something weird going on with Kudou, almost like he was in hiding. KID had never actually seen him in real life, just a bunch of video clips — mostly of him accusing people of murder — so this was going to be tricky.

He didn't bother doing anything to his face. It would pass a cursory inspection, and for anything more in-depth — well, his looks would probably not be what tripped him up.

He packed everything away, taking the opportunity to dry-swallow a couple of painkillers. After one last check to make sure he wasn't leaving anything behind, and a quick wipe of any hard surfaces he'd touched, he positioned his bag _just so_, and then Kudou Shinichi walked out the door of his childhood friend Mouri Ran's room.

Ran looked pleasantly surprised, which was nice, but the brat gaped at him in shock. Not good.

He had no idea what Conan's relationship with Kudou was actually like, so he went with what felt natural: a patronizing nickname and a hair-ruffle, making sure to dislodge his glasses for good measure.

He was sure he was still more convincing than Ran, who came down with a case of the giggles again, but at least she got them out of there fast. Or maybe that's what she was actually like around Kudou? Some girls did tend to giggle more around guys they liked, didn't they? Hopefully Conan would buy it, anyway, but Kaito wasn't going to be holding his breath.

He let Ran lead him down the street for a moment, then glanced back to make sure they weren't being followed, and commenced evasive maneuvers. 

They were quickly in and out of a boutique that had doors on two different streets, and halfway down an alley before Ran pulled them to a stop.

“Wait, wait, I need to call Shinichi! What if Conan calls him? He'll cover for me if I ask him to.”

KID considered the risks. He didn't know Kudou Shinichi, but he _did_ know Conan, and the kid was nothing if not thorough. “Fine, but no details. Remember what you promised.”

“Shinichi isn't the police,” she protested.

“As far as I'm concerned, he might as well be.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. But we'll talk about this later.”

KID listened closely as she left a voicemail message, but she didn't seem to be leaving any hints. It was not inconceivable that she and Kudou had some sort of code worked out ahead of time, but it wasn't likely they could have foreseen this exact set of circumstances. Just in case, he made sure to take the lead when it came time to determine their destination, and pickpocketed her phone again at the earliest opportunity, surreptitiously taking out the battery before slipping it into his own pocket.

They crossed through two more shops, a cafe, and down a few more alleys before taking the train from the next station over. They got off three stops after that, blending into the crowd and casually making their way to a slightly dingy 24-hour karaoke place that he'd been to a couple of times before. The good thing about karaoke hubs was that everything was soundproof.

They rented one of the smallest rooms they had, and made their way to it through the narrow hallways. Mouri-san wrinkled her nose at the peeling upholstery. “This place is kind of a dump, isn't it?”

“But perfect for holding clandestine conversations undisturbed. And that is what you wanted, isn't it?” He gestured towards the touchscreen built into the tabletop of the booth. “Pick a song, Mouri-san. The computer keeps track of what songs we play. We wouldn't want to seem suspicious.”

She sat down and peered at the screen, tapping something after only a few seconds. A cheerful, upbeat rhythm started playing. Something he'd heard on the radio recently, but by an artist he couldn't name. It was loud, which was the most important part. Mouri-san then looked at him expectantly.

He sat down catty-corner to her, on the side of the booth, and leaned forward, weaving his fingers together on the table. “Well, Mouri-san, this is your show. What is it going to take to convince you not to put yourself in danger?”

She seemed to consider him for a moment, while he waited patiently, but when she finally spoke it wasn't anything he'd expected. “How old are you?” she asked.

“Why, Mouri-san,” he joked, half-reflexively, “don't you know it's terribly rude to ask a lady her age?”

Ran snorted. “Try that on someone who hasn't seen your bare chest. You're completely flat.”

KID gasped and pressed a hand to his heart dramatically, using the other to clutch some invisible pearls. “And now you're disparaging the size of my assets? How rude, Mouri-san, I expected better of you. Not all of us can be so well endowed.”

She laughed, then blinked at him, as if startled by her own reaction. That was good, this would probably go more smoothly if she liked him. 

“You're not going to tell me, are you?” she asked, resigned.

KID dropped his hands and leaned back casually, trying to keep his weight on the one part of his back that _wasn't_ covered in bruises. “A phantom thief has to keep _some_ secrets, don't you think?”

She sighed, but didn't seem too put out. “Fine. But you said you would explain things. So who was that man, the one who was trying to shoot you — Snake?”

“He's a criminal, as you've probably already guessed, and one who is nowhere near as much of a gentleman as I am,” he said seriously. He'd thought through his approach to this conversation as they'd travelled, and he'd come to the conclusion that he would need to be direct about at least the danger Snake and his associates posed. “I have had a few encounters with him in the past, and he has never hesitated to take hostages or even shoot innocent bystanders if he thinks it might get him what he wants. He's not someone you want to get involved with, Mouri-san.”

“If he's so dangerous, that just makes it more important for him to get arrested, and that's not going to happen if nobody reports him.”

“I did say he's shot bystanders in the past, didn't I? Fairly brazenly, at that. Do you think nobody reported it? And yet the relevant surveillance footage always mysteriously goes missing, and he's still not on any most wanted list.” 

KID had looked into that very matter quite extensively in the past. After the Red Tear heist, when Snake had shot all those people, he'd tried to get the investigation pointed in the right direction, and that's when he'd first started to get an inkling of how extensive Snake's organization must be. Evidence had been repeatedly mishandled, or disappeared altogether, or replaced with something manufactured, and the final report of the incident had very little to do with what KID _knew_ had happened that night. They'd ended up casting the fake-KID as the mastermind, and had even found a mustached career-criminal with roughly the same build as Snake to play the part of one of his accomplices, presumably to appease the witnesses. The two of them and a small handful of others had gone to trial, pled guilty, and been sentenced — Kaito had followed the case closely — but when it came time to serve their time, they'd instead disappeared from the system. KID hadn't been able to find a trace of any of them since. They might be in Fiji, or they might all be lying at the bottom of a shallow grave, for all he knew.

He'd started to pay closer attention after that. Snake didn't show up often, but he generally wasn't subtle when he did. So after every encounter, KID kept track of who among the police was on scene afterwards, who saw what, who _reported_ what, and what details were subsequently changed or ignored. In this way he'd been able to come up with a short list of names he thought were dirty, with varying degrees of certainty. But even so, it was obvious he was barely scratching the surface. Whoever Snake ultimately worked for, they were powerful and well-connected, and as a rule much more discreet than Snake in the way they did things. He wouldn't have to exaggerate anything about them for Mouri-san's sake.

“No, Snake is just the tip of the iceberg,” he continued, “and even I don't know how deep it goes. It's in your best interest to forget you know anything about this, Mouri-san. I haven't managed to find out too much about them, but I _do_ know that people who get too close to them tend to have unfortunate accidents. You have a family to think about, Mouri-san. Conan-kun is only seven years old, can you really justify putting him at risk?”

He could tell he was getting to her. “Conan cares about justice more than anyone I know,” she protested weakly.

“That may be true, but he's still only seven. You have a responsibility to protect him, don't you?”

“At the rate Conan runs into murder-mysteries,” she said slowly, as if she was trying to determine the merit of the argument even as she made it, feeling her way forward, “if this group is really as bad as you say, and if they've really managed to infiltrate the police, then he's going to run into them sooner or later, anyway.”

“Then let it be later, when he's old enough to protect himself. Right now he's helpless.” Which was overstating the case a bit, but he was betting Mouri-san didn't know just how vicious her brat could be. “It wouldn't be hard for them to arrange for an accident if they decide you're a potential threat.”

“Is that what happened to you?”

KID blinked. “Pardon?”

“You, your family — did they arrange for an accident?” 

Kaito froze. It should have been an easy question to answer. His instinct was to lie, but what was the lie? They _had_ arranged… his dad had — 

But if he said no, would that undermine his point? Would it contradict the narrative he was trying to build up? Just how much of Snake's little psychotic monologue had she heard?

Kaito's mouth felt suddenly dry. He very deliberately did _not_ swallow, or lick his lips. “In a manner of speaking.”

“But they didn't succeed, did they? You're still here. So why are _you_ involved with them?” Her eyes were bright with conviction. “With your skills you could take your family and hide somewhere, and instead you're running around making a spectacle of yourself, stealing things and not even keeping them. If they found you at this heist, they could find you at the next one — you're just making yourself a target. Aren't you concerned it's only a matter of time before you leave your son fatherless?” she accused.

An inarticulate noise escaped Kaito's throat. Ran didn't know what she was talking about; he wasn't… he didn't...

His _dad_ hadn't —

It wasn't like that. He wasn't carelessly risking his life by staging heists, risking his life was the whole _point_. It was a calculated risk. 

And besides, he didn't actually _have_ a son. Kaito had a brief flash of a giggling toddler with his blue eyes and Aoko's dimples — but that was an impossibility. And it looked like he might have to clue Ran in on that fact.

“I assure you, Mouri-san, that I, unlike you, don't have any dependants. The truth is —” He took a deep breath. “The truth is my family did _not_ emerge intact all those years ago. I have very little left to lose.”

Ran stared at him with wide, sympathetic eyes, but he avoided her gaze. The music had stopped some time ago, so he reached over and tapped something at random, grabbed the microphone, and faced the screen where the lyrics were projected. He didn't know the song, but the chorus wasn't hard to learn. He joined in on the second repetition. He didn't risk a glance at Ran until halfway through the third verse. She was still looking at him, leaning against the table with her chin in her hand.

“That was pretty good,” she said, “but Shinichi can't sing.”

“Oh?” He hadn't been deliberately trying to impersonate Kudou, but he guessed their voices were similar enough. When the chorus came around again he made a deliberate effort to sing off key. “How was that?” he asked while the song wound down.

There was a ghost of a smirk on her face. “Still much, much better than Shinichi.”

They fell silent, listening to the last notes fade away.

Eventually Ran cleared her throat. “So was Snake wrong? About who you are, I mean? Or — or is that why you disappeared for all those years? But if that's true…” she fell silent.

Kaito didn't reply. He didn't know what to say, for once. How to navigate his way out of this situation.

“Kaitou Kid did die, didn't he?” she said quietly. “Snake only _thought_ they'd failed to kill him.” And Mouri-san thought she wasn't a good detective. She was one up on Snake, anyway.

This was getting him nowhere. He would have to hope he had been convincing enough about the risk going to the police would pose, and monitor the situation, just in case. You'd think that someone who ran into murders as often as Mouri-san did would take the threat of violence more seriously.

“All of this is beside the point, Mouri-san. Really, none of it is any of your business. I've indulged your curiosity, but ultimately it's your decision whether you want to put yourself and your whole family in danger. I hope you make the right choice. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have things I need to be getting on with.”

He stood up, but she stood up too, and grabbed his wrist in a firm hold. He could have broken free — the table was separating them, and she wasn’t at a good angle — but he didn't want to escalate. He was in no shape for a physical confrontation.

Instead, he let his voice go ice cold. “Do you intend to keep me here by force, Mouri-san?”

“No, not — not force,” she stuttered out, then continued, stronger. “But if you leave now, I'm going to go to the police.”

“But that's not really a threat to _me_, is it? The things you have to tell them would only put _you_ in danger. Not to mention the charges for aiding and abetting an internationally wanted criminal.”

“I told you, I know Inspector Megure, he wouldn't charge me if I explained the situation. And I do have — I have something. Your face. I bet the police would be interested in a picture of the Kaitou Kid's real face. They could run it through their databases, or — or just spread it around, and that would make things a lot harder for you, wouldn't it?”

Much harder than she probably suspected. The last thing Hakuba needed was independently corroborated evidence, and it's not like any member of the task force wouldn't be able to recognize Kuroba Kaito at a glance. If she really had a picture of him, then he was in trouble. Even if she didn't, she probably had plenty of Kudou Shinichi, which would be a close enough approximation that the result would be just as disastrous. It would be her word against his, but Kaito had been under suspicion before, and Mouri Ran's record was squeaky clean. She was right to think she had a lot of credit with the police.

If she went through with it, Kuroba Kaito might have to be permanently retired as an identity. In a lot of ways that would make things simpler, especially in light of Snake's latest threats. Kaito was eighty percent certain that Snake had just been bullshitting to hurt “Toichi” as much as possible before killing him, and wouldn't have bothered to follow through afterwards, but who knew? He'd never gone after Kaito's original identity directly before, despite being convinced that his father was still KID, but Kaito had never been able to figure out what was actually stopping him. It wasn't moral scruples, that was for sure. Maybe it would be better for everyone if Kaito just became KID full-time.

“And — and before you think you can get it back just by stealing my phone,” Mouri-san continued, “you should know I've already backed it up, and sent it out. It's probably all over the internet by now — not that anyone else knows it's you, but I could just pull it up and let Inspector Megure know. And he would keep my name out of it if I asked him to. So you see, it's in _your_ best interest to sit back down and, and —” she hesitated, before finishing weakly, “and listen to me.”

He slowly lowered himself back down into his seat. She didn't let go of his wrist until he was fully settled, as if afraid he would change his mind.

“I'm surprised, Mouri-san,” he said calmly, casually. “I didn't think you had it in you to threaten my life like that. And after you went to all the trouble of saving it. Surely it would have been easier to just let Snake spill my blood all over that courtyard.”

“You wouldn't be in danger, even if you got arrested. They could protect you if they knew people were after you. And they could keep it a secret.”

“Even if your Inspector Megure _is_ trustworthy, and _does_ believe you, against all odds, do you really think he could keep the arrest of Kaitou KID a secret? I have _international _warrants out for my arrest, and paperwork is easy enough to intercept, even if none of the intended recipients work for the enemy. Don't be naive, Mouri-san.”

“I'm not — look, Kid-san, I think you're a good person. I know Conan likes you a lot, and he's a pretty good judge of character. But I have seen a lot of people, a lot of _good_ people, ruin their lives — ruin _themselves_ — for revenge. Asoh Seiji, and Yonehara-sensei, and —” she broke off, took a deep breath, and continued, her voice filled with painful sincerity, “and it never seemed worth it to me. But you, you haven't actually — well, you've broken the law, but you haven't done anything _wrong._ Nothing you can't take back. It's not too late for you, and I don't want to see you destroyed by this. I _refuse_ to see you destroyed by this. And if you continue as you are, that's what's going to happen, one way or another.”

“So, what?” Kaito asked bitterly. “I'm just supposed to forget about everything they did? Just let them run around doing whatever they like, let them do it to someone else? They're _murderers_, they're not going to stop. I thought you believed in justice, Mouri-san.”

“I do! I do believe in justice, but there has to be a better way to do this — is anybody even helping you, or are you doing this completely alone?”

Kaito looked away. Jii-chan helped him, but he wasn't going to give her any more ammunition to use against him.

She let out a soft, shuddering sigh. “As long as you stop pulling heists, stop _stealing_, stop putting yourself in danger, then I won't say anything to the police. But I can help you. I wasn't lying when I said I know a lot of detectives. You can still get justice. Even just Shinichi —”

KID cut her off with a sharp motion of his hand. “If you expect me to cooperate, Mouri-san, then you have to promise not to get anyone else involved in this. I have my limits, too, even if I'm not as ruthless as you are.”

Kaito took petty satisfaction in the way she flinched. Then she visibly steeled herself. “Fine, then. I won't tell anyone anything without your permission, as long as you don't do anything rash without mine.” Her voice turned soft, pleading. “You're too close to this. There's a reason they don't let police officers handle cases where their family members are the victims. You need a second opinion from someone uninvolved. And it might as well be me.”

The worst part was that he knew exactly where she was coming from. Their positions weren't all that different, really. If Kaito hadn't cared about her safety, he could have slipped away on any number of occasions. But no, he'd had to stay to make sure she didn't put herself in danger. He didn't know why it surprised him that she would want to return the favor. He knew that if _he_ had something to use against her to ensure her cooperation, he wouldn't hesitate.

At least he had the assurance that if she _did_ turn him in to the police, it wouldn't be because of a lack of compassion. No, she just had a lot more faith in them than he did. KID had plenty of first-hand knowledge of just how fallible the police could be.

She looked him over and winced. “You look terrible, you should get some rest. Go home, take some painkillers, and sleep. We can talk more later.”

“Thank you for your concern, Mouri-san, but I'm not seven. You don't need to mother me,” he said dryly. He felt drained more than anything. “When did you want to reconvene this little tête-à-tête, and where?”

“How about in a week, next Sunday? You should be feeling better by then. We can meet at that café by my house — not Poirot, that's too close — but there's a big one nearby, I think it's called The Lucky Turtle Cafe. Do you know it?”

“I'm sure that I can find it. Next Sunday at noon, then?” He asked, and she nodded her agreement.

He paused as they got up to leave. “One thing, though. If you knew this was my real face, why the questions about my age? Why ask about a son I would have had to have had years ago?”

She hesitated. “You're going to think I'm crazy — it _is_ crazy, but I thought you might be older than you look. I mean, you don't look forty, but if you stopped aging, or if — but that's stupid, isn't it?”

KID considered that. “No, it's not stupid. I've seen stranger things.” 

Akako, for one. Or even just whatever was going on with Conan. There was no way that kid was normal.

KID reassembled Mouri-san's phone, and slipped it back into her pocket as she brushed past him while he held the door for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what do you think? I'm a little insecure about this chapter.


	4. Shinichi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To those that celebrate it: Happy Thanksgiving!

“I still don't understand why y'don't just ask her 'bout it,” said Hattori, wandering back over after purchasing his ticket. Conan was young enough to get in for free.

“I _did_ ask her about it. She practically hung up on me!” 

They started walking straight towards the back of the building, ignoring both the various exhibits and what few other patrons were present this early in the morning.

“As Conan. I mean confront her as _Conan_,” Hattori replied, unimpressed. “She can't hang up on you face to face.”

“And I already told you, I _can't_. Conan wouldn't have any reason to suspect that it wasn't Shinichi in that room with her, especially after Shinichi confirmed that it had been him.”

“And _why_ would Shinichi confirm that?” 

“Because Ran asked him to — me! She asked _me_ to. What, was I supposed to say no? After everything I’ve put her through, you want me to refuse a simple favor? A little white lie, when she practically never asks me for anything? It's the least I could do.”

So he was weak to that pleading note in her voice, sue him. He should have just claimed that he'd answered Conan's call before he'd gotten her message, but the whole business left a bad taste in his mouth. He didn't actually like lying to Ran.

“So y’decided to trust her judgement, that she had a good reason for asking ya to do what she asked ya to do.”

“Exactly.”

“So why are we here again?”

Shinichi growled, exasperated, as Hattori held the door open for a woman with a stroller. “It's not Ran I don't trust, Hattori, it's _KID_.” He followed Hattori outside.

At least he was now relatively sure that it _had_ been KID, which took the worst of the urgency out of the situation. Ran had certainly thought it was him. When Shinichi had finally returned her call as himself, she had at first tried to stonewall him entirely, but when he'd asked her outright if the ‘Shinichi’ Conan had seen in her room had actually been Kaitou KID, she'd stuttered out that she'd promised not to tell him anything. It wouldn't have been a hard deduction to make, considering Ran had called him from the heist the night before, and KID was notorious for his disguise skills. Ran's response had practically been an admission.

That was all he'd managed to get out of her, though. Worse yet, Ran had beaten him home on Sunday. By the time he had returned from his unsuccessful search for the two of them, she had been in the kitchen washing dishes, no doubt destroying all kinds of physical evidence. To add insult to injury, he'd gotten scolded for going out in the rain. 

She wouldn't let him check her room, either, and had made a point to dust the entire house, and run the vacuum, despite the fact she normally did that on Wednesdays. By now he doubted there would be any trace of KID left in there. He was still kicking himself for not searching her room before he set out to follow them. Ugh, hindsight.

With Ran stubbornly refusing to provide any answers, he had decided to approach the problem from the opposite direction. That was easier said than done, however. Apparently letting the KID Killer onto the site of a heist was one thing, but letting him read the police reports afterwards was a step too far. The way Nakamori was tight-fisted with information, you'd think KID was a threat to national security, instead of just a really persistent, extravagant nuisance.

All of which brought him here.

“Alright,” he said, unfolding the map of the museum's botanical garden and double-checking their location. “Several credible sources on KID's fansites claim they saw him go down — either land or crash, accounts vary — soon after gliding off of the south side of the main building. That would have been around here.” He gestured at the map, then at their surroundings. “The theory popular with the police at the time was that it had been another one of KID's inflatable decoys, but from what we know of Ran's movements on the night in question, I think we have to assume it was the genuine article.” 

Sonoko hadn't held up anywhere near as well as Ran under interrogation. She had been all too happy to rant at Conan about Shinichi's insensitivity. It pained him to think that their aborted phone call had upset Ran, but KID had been _right there_, and he couldn't very well use the voice-changer to chat with Ran _and_ chase the thief at the same time, could he? He'd have to make it up to her somehow. At least Sonoko had been good for the approximate time Ran had exited the building, and the direction she'd headed in. 

“It’s been three days since the heist," he continued, "but this is the first day the museum has reopened, so hopefully there will still be something left of the scene.”

Hattori cast a shadow over him as he peered down at the map from over his head. “Don’t’cha think you're taking this a little seriously, Kudou? From what you've told me, you've practically let KID escape in the past. Why’s it so different when Ran does it?”

“I've never invited KID into my bedroom,” he grumbled, refolding the map. “He may not be particularly dangerous, but he's still a criminal. I need to know what he's doing with Ran.”

“Heh, that makes it sound like ya think they were, y'know, _gettin’ it on_.”

Shinichi felt his face heat. “Shut up, Hattori!” he sputtered. “If you don't have anything helpful to say, make yourself useful and search that area over there. I'll be by that fountain. Call me if you find anything.”

“Whatever y'say, Kudou,” Hattori snickered, and walked away, still chuckling occasionally.

Asshole. As if his reaction would have been any different if it had been Kazuha getting mixed up in KID's business instead of Ran. Hell, Shinichi bet he was being downright reasonable in comparison.

Honestly, this venture wasn't too promising. It had rained twice since the night of the heist, and between that, the police, the park employees, and whatever wildlife made its home around here, they'd be lucky to find any evidence at all. Even if KID _had_ made his way through here, which they weren't a hundred percent sure about.

Shinichi inspected the fountain. It was a gigantic, solid stone monstrosity, surrounded by a short, narrow basin; the centerpiece of a small cobbled courtyard with a few benches scattered around its edges. It wouldn't have been of any particular interest except that someone, presumably KID, had impersonated a task force member to report shots fired specifically in this vicinity. That particular task force member had later been found sleeping in a broom closet, so the idea was that KID had set off the decoy, then radioed in a false report to get police attention to one area, while he completed his escape by some other means entirely. Shinichi wasn't so sure.

For one thing, shots fired was an odd thing to report at a KID heist. As far as he was aware, every time KID had purportedly used a real gun, it had turned out to be an impostor. That toy card-gun of his was a different thing entirely, but the sound it made wasn't loud or distinctive enough to be recognizably a gunshot if someone didn't see it go off.

There had been a simultaneous KID sighting on the roof of the easternmost building, but last he’d heard there had still been confusion as to who exactly had called that one in — it may or may not have been KID. In any case, the taskforce hadn't found anything up there either.

Ran definitely wouldn't have been on top of that building, so assuming KID had been _down here_, where he could have crossed paths with her, why would someone claim to have seen him _up there_? Shinichi shaded his eyes and squinted up at the building. Someone standing up there would probably have a pretty good view of the fountain and the surrounding area. What did that mean? If KID was down here… unless…

There. There was a spot high up on the fountain that looked freshly chipped off. And if he followed the trajectory…

Just as he'd thought. There was a cobblestone missing, and then another two from an area almost at the edge of the courtyard. The dirt at the bottom of the gaps was a noticeably different color and texture than anything else around, and there were marks on the surrounding stones. Freshly pried up. The only question was whether forensics had removed the cobblestones, or if it had been the perpetrator? Or maybe KID, for some reason? That seemed unlikely, but he couldn't immediately dismiss it. 

Damn Nakamori for being so uncooperative. He hadn't let Shinichi investigate the area on the night of the heist, either, or else he would have had a much better idea of what had happened by now. Apparently a seven-year-old had no business running around anywhere there might be gunfire. Which Shinichi would admit sounded reasonable enough, if he didn't happen to be the seven-year-old in question.

But if somebody had been taking potshots at KID from the roof, how had Ran gotten involved? How did that translate to Ran bringing KID home with her?

If he'd threatened her — but Shinichi didn't really believe that. Even if he thought KID would do something like that, which he didn't, Ran wasn't acting like someone who had been threatened. No, she was acting like a co-conspirator.

So, what, KID had convinced her to help him escape? That didn't really sound like Ran; she had a lot of respect for the law. Maybe if he'd been injured — or pretending injury, because he hadn't seemed injured the following morning — then Ran might have let her compassion override her good sense and agreed not to take him to the police. Shinichi had to admit that between KID and somebody shooting at KID, KID was clearly the lesser evil. And he knew first-hand how charming KID could be when he really tried. 

But why would KID need Ran's help in the first place? What could she do for him that he couldn't do himself? And why would he want to follow her to the home base of at least one competent detective?

He examined the plants nearest the missing cobblestones. He wasn't expecting anything as obvious as spilled blood, not after three days, but maybe if he was lucky… 

There were some large alocasias — elephant ear plants — and next to them a dense bush of some variety of lilac. And in between some sort of groundcover with purple veins on spiky lobed leaves. A groundcover that was struggling to bounce back, but which had at some point recently been pretty thoroughly trampled.

Shinichi carefully followed the trail deeper into the bushes. More damaged plants. It looked like he wasn't the first person to have searched this area, but that just meant that someone had thought there was something to find here. And if they’d been searching directly after the heist, they would have been searching in the dark. Shinichi had the benefit of full daylight, and a conveniently low vantage point. He scrutinized his surroundings with renewed determination.

He'd just thought he'd glimpsed something underneath a particularly large and bushy alocasia when his phone rang.

He made sure to check the caller before he picked up. “Yeah, Hattori?”

“I think I found the place KID crashed — and it looks like it was definitely a crash. There's a tree here with a lot of freshly-snapped branches. Can't really think of another way they might have gotten like that. That's proof that KID was definitely here.”

“I think I've done you one better, Hattori,” Shinichi replied, wedging the phone against his shoulder and using both hands to push away the plant's gigantic leaves. There. Just as he'd thought.

It didn't answer any of his most pressing questions, really, but it was always nice to have a theory confirmed. He let the satisfaction leech into his voice. “I've found KID’s hat.”


	5. Ran

Ran idly swirled the liquid in the bottom of her tea cup. It was 11:55 am, a full week after her last encounter with Kid. He should be showing up anytime now.

She'd come early, because she'd been nervous, and she was glad she had. Apparently the café was in the middle of a lunch rush, and she'd been lucky to get one of the tiny outdoor tables all to herself.

She wondered what she would do if Kid just didn't show up. It was easy enough to say she would turn him in if he didn't cooperate with her, but the thought of actually having to do it tied her stomach up in knots. And not just because she'd have a lot of explaining to do about her own behavior.

She'd always had pretty mixed feelings about the Kaitou Kid. On the one hand, he'd drugged and impersonated her at the very first heist she'd attended, and he was a criminal, a thief with no respect for people's private property, or dignity, or _identities_, who continually wasted police resources. But on the other hand, well, it was hard not to get wrapped up in the romanticism of it all, especially when Sonoko really got going. Kid definitely knew how to play to his audience. And Ran _knew_ that Conan liked him, no matter how much he tried to deny it. He always got extra excited whenever he got the chance to go to a heist.

But for all that, Kid had never seemed quite real to her. In her mind, whenever he hadn't been out antagonizing the police in his unique, outrageously flamboyant fashion, he had ceased to exist. And maybe that was even true, in a way, but now she _knew_ that there was a real person there, somewhere behind the monocle, who had to eat and sleep, who could bruise and bleed, who had motives for doing things that went beyond the desire to be generally infuriating… 

The thought shouldn't have been as revolutionary as it was.

Ran had looked it up after she'd gotten home after their last conversation. If Kid was her age, then the original — his father? — would have died when he was around eight. A year older than Conan. She tried to imagine what Conan would do if Fumiyo was murdered. If Ran herself was murdered. Well, he wouldn't become a phantom thief, but it would mess him up for sure, especially if nobody caught the perpetrator.

Kid was definitely messed up. His persona was usually so polished; it had been painful to watch it crack in that tiny, shabby, dimly lit room. It really hadn't helped that he had looked so much like Shinichi.

At first she'd thought that the whole thing with Snake was incidental to whatever Kid was trying to accomplish with his heists, but the more she had tried to make sense of it all, the more convinced she had become that catching Snake and whatever criminal organization he worked for was the _whole_ _point_ of the heists. The original Kid might have had different motivations, but the current one was in it for revenge.

It still didn't really make sense. What was Snake's interest in Kid? Why the jewels? Was Kid just mimicking what his father had done, and Snake just taking the opportunity to go after him wherever he could get it? Surely there should have been an easier way to accomplish it all. And why wait almost eight years to act? Why not get the police involved from the beginning?

Ran had a whole list of questions she planned on asking Kid, now that she'd had a chance to think things through. Not written down anywhere, of course, because Conan had been making a pest of himself all week, and there was no doubt that he would have found it if it had existed outside her head. Ran had the vague idea that Conan was jealous that she'd gotten to spend time with Shinichi. He'd kept on bugging her about it, and following her around everywhere, which was unusual for him. He wasn't particularly clingy, normally. She would probably have more sympathy for him if she didn't know for a fact that he still had more contact with Shinichi than she did.

It hurt a little, that Shinichi had never mentioned Conan to her, when the two of them were so close. At least Shinichi had agreed to cover for her, even if he had figured out that the fake Shinichi had actually been the Kaitou Kid. Her response had probably done nothing to dissuade him from that thought.

It shouldn't make too much difference, because she fully intended to convince Kid to let her bring Shinichi in on their little conspiracy as soon as possible. He was the one detective she knew she could trust completely, and he cared more about people than he did the law, so she didn't think he would disagree with her stance on the whole situation. She would just have to make Kid see that, somehow.

“Do you mind if I sit here? Everywhere else is full.”

Ran looked up, startled out of her thoughts. A girl holding a cup of tea and a slice of cake blinked hopefully back at her. Ran bit her lip, glancing around, but everywhere else _was_ full, and Kid was nowhere to be found. “Sure!” she said eventually, forcing herself to put on a friendly smile. When Kid finally showed up, the two of them would just have to go somewhere else to talk. 

_If_ he showed up. She checked her watch. It was now three minutes past noon. No need to start worrying yet. She'd have to give it at least half an hour. Maybe a full hour, just in case his train was late, or — or his hang-glider got stuck in a tree or something.

“Are you waiting for someone? I don't want to be a bother.” The girl had set down her plate, but stayed hovering uncertainly behind her chair.

“No, that's okay,” Ran hastily reassured. “It's his own fault he's late, and it's nicer to have company, anyway — go ahead and sit down.”

The girl smiled back at her as she got settled. “Are you waiting for your boyfriend?” she asked, with a note of teasing in her voice. She had large, dark eyes and a huge butterfly-shaped clip holding her curly, flyaway hair away from her face. She looked to be around Ran's age.

“What? No!” Ran did her best to suppress a blush. “Just — just a friend.”

The girl raised an eyebrow. “Not a very good friend, if he's keeping you waiting.”

“A new friend,” Ran replied firmly. Or something like that, anyway. “I'm Mouri Ran, by the way. I haven't seen you around before. Do you go to school around here?”

The girl grinned at her. It made her eyes sparkle. “I'm Katou Kei. Please, call me Kei-chan.”

Ran smiled back more genuinely. “Then call me Ran-chan, Kei-chan.” It _was_ nice to have someone to talk to while she waited, instead of rehashing the same questions and uncertainties that had been plaguing her all week. “Do you go to Teitan, too, Kei-chan?”

“Ah, no, I don't live in Beika. I'm just visiting. I was supposed to meet someone.”

Just like Ran, then. “Well, at least the weather is nice out here while we wait.”

“Sure is,” agreed Kei-chan cheerfully. “I was worried it might be a little hot, you see. I usually wear white.” She took a bite of her cake with obvious relish.

Ran tried to think of any nearby high schools that had white uniforms. It didn't seem like a very practical color, even if white did reflect the heat more. She took a sip of the remains of her own tea and grimaced. Maybe she should order something fresh — Kei-chan's cake did look good — but her stomach was still a little upset from nerves, and she didn't want to be stuck there if Kid finally did show up.

She tried to think of something else to say, and hey eyes caught on the colorful way the other girl's hair-clip reflected the light. It looked like it was mostly made out of mother-of-pearl.

“I really like that butterfly in your hair, Kei-chan.”

“Thank you, Ran-chan! I'm usually a night owl, but I do like the way it sparkles in the sunlight.”

“It's very pretty,” Ran agreed. “Where did you buy it, if I may ask?” Sonoko's birthday was coming up. She might like something like it.

“Down by the museum, actually. I usually like my gemstones a little larger, but this was practically a steal, so I couldn't resist.”

“I can never pass up a good sale, either,” Ran replied cordially, but privately she wondered what kind of jewelry the girl normally wore, if this was subtle for her. Ran thought the butterfly was already a little on the gaudy side. Sonoko had questionable taste sometimes, though; she probably would have liked it a lot.

Kei-chan chuckled, as if Ran had told a joke. She twirled her fork between the fingers of one hand, leaning forward and resting her chin in the palm of her other hand as she braced an elbow on the table.

“You're not very good at picking up hints, are you, Ran-chan?” she asked warmly.

Ran felt her eyes go wide. Hints? Was — was Kei-chan _hitting on her_? Ran immediately went beet red. The other girl _was_ very attractive, with her cloud of shiny black hair, and her dramatic dark eyes that crinkled up cutely when she smiled, framed by thick, impossibly long lashes — and that was besides the point. 

“Um — that is… well —” _Shinichi_. She should say something about Shinichi. She took a deep breath. “I'm flattered, Kei-chan, but I, uh, I already have someone that I —” She broke off as Kei-chan burst out laughing. Ran frowned. What, had that been some sort of joke at her expense?

“I'm — I'm sorry, Ran-chan,” Kei-chan replied, visibly trying to get her laughter under control. “That's — that's not what I meant. It's me.” A giggle escaped past the hand she was now using to shield her mouth.

Me? What was that supposed to mean? Ran was starting to get annoyed.

Kei-chan got herself under control and leaned in towards Ran again. “It's _me_, Mouri-san,” she said meaningfully. “I'm not late.”

“What?” Ran didn't know anything about Kei-chan's schedule. The only person she cared about being late was — oh. “Oh,” Ran said.

Kei-chan — Kid — smirked at her. “Finally.” 

Now that Ran looked closer, Kei-chan did look a little like what Shinichi's sister might have looked like. He — she? — _he_. He was obviously wearing makeup, but not any more than some of Ran's classmates did, so she hadn't paid it much mind. His complexion looked paler than she remembered, but that might have just been due to contrast with the darker hair and eyes. Contacts, obviously, and a wig, and false lashes. Probably false lashes. Kid's eyelashes had been pretty great, actually, so maybe just a really good mascara.

Ran pursed her lips. “You could have said something.”

Kid’s smirk widened mischievously, and he dug back into his cake. “This was more fun.”

“Well, I'm glad you're feeling better, at least,” Ran muttered, a little resentfully.

Kid didn't take offense. “I am, Ran-chan!” he chirped. “Thank you for asking.” And then he closed his eyes with exaggerated enjoyment as he took his next bite. 

Ran sighed and looked around for a server to wave over. She was going to need to fortify herself for this conversation — she could already tell Kid wasn't going to make it easy for her. And that cake _did_ look delicious.


	6. Kaito

“What's the matter with you?”

Kaito groaned, but didn't lift his head off of his desk. “Leave me alone, Ahoko,” he said directly into his inner elbow. “I have a headache, and your screechy voice isn't helping.”

“Since when do you get headaches, Bakaito?” He could hear the frown in Aoko's voice.

“You've been off since the last heist, Kuroba,” Hakuba butted in. “Could it be that the Kaitou KID didn't emerge from a confrontation with the police unscathed?”

“Or maybe I'm still feeling sick, which is what stopped me from going to that heist in the first place,” he muttered half-heartedly. “Way to rub it in, Hakuba.” Hakuba was such an asshole.

“C'mon, Saguru, class is about to start. Maybe if Kaito catches a nap he'll be less cranky later.” He had a feeling she was sticking her tongue out at him, but he didn't look up to check.

Kaito was not having a good day. Not a good week, really. With Jii still in the hospital, he'd been forced to put in his own stitches. That had been fun. At least Jii-chan had smuggled him some good local anaesthetic when Kaito had visited him. Kaito was impressed he'd managed to swipe it with his leg as immobilized as it was. 

But the painkillers had long since worn off, and Kaito was still sore all over, and starting to turn a lot of interesting colors. 

He'd decided to give himself the rest of the week off. There didn't really seem to be much point in putting too much effort into anything when he could be going to jail soon, or else forced to abandon one or the other of his two major identities. 

It hurt a lot more than he would have expected it to, the thought of just not being KID anymore. It was a means to an end, sure, but it had also made him feel a lot closer to his dad. As if he was following in his footsteps. 

(Which was stupid, because the dad he remembered wouldn't have wanted him to become a criminal.)

And it had been fun. Was fun. The challenge of it, the adrenaline. He didn't think it was unreasonable for him to be proud of everything he'd accomplished as a phantom thief: all the shows he'd put on, all the people he'd mystified, fans and detractors alike. He'd put a lot of work into maintaining KID's reputation as someone untouchable. A literal phantom. 

Only to be foiled by a person who was essentially a seven-year-old's _sidekick_.

Hakuba had discovered his identity, too, but Hakuba was too wrapped up in trying to prove his own intellectual superiority to be truly ruthless about cornering KID. He had a feeling Mouri Ran wouldn't have that problem, if she ever got over feeling sorry for him. And it was probably only a matter of time. Kaito was self-aware enough to know he was an even bigger asshole than Hakuba.

He wanted to believe that everything would work out, but it didn't feel that way. Maybe because he'd already acknowledged that what he was doing wasn't working. Had never really worked. KID had been active again for over a year and a half now, and what did Kaito have to show for it? A handful of names and the certainty that he was way out of his league. He wasn't even sure he believed Pandora was anything more than a myth.

So the thought of never pulling another heist really shouldn't have been as devastating as it was. The days seemed to stretch out before him in a gray blur of monotonous mundanity… Prison would be worse, probably, but right now he didn't see much difference.

In retrospect, he probably shouldn't have wrapped up so much of his identity and purpose in something as fundamentally unsustainable as Kaitou KID. His dad had managed to pull it off for over eight years, but Kaito knew he wasn't anywhere near as good as his dad had been. And even he had slipped up in the end.

In a lot of ways it was easier to contemplate dropping Kuroba Kaito. What did Kaito have in his life? A single friend who he constantly lied to, who barely knew him anymore, who would probably hate him if she _did_ know him. A mother who spent forty-eight weeks out of every year on the other side of the globe. And what? School? That was pretty pathetic.

And it was even more pathetic that he was wallowing like this. He should be doing damage control of some sort. Trying to find some leverage to use against Mouri-san, maybe… but he couldn't even delude himself that he was likely to find anything. The only thing the least bit suspicious about Mouri Ran was Kudou Shinichi, but Kaito didn't have any idea where to even begin looking for Kudou, even if he thought finding him would accomplish anything. Well, and Conan, but Conan wasn't so much suspicious as a huge can of radioactive, glow-in-the-dark, probably flesh-eating worms that had collectively put on a pair of fake glasses and a bowtie and called themselves a detective. Whatever was going on with Conan, Kaito was sure Ran wasn't in on it, so trying to bring that issue into the conversation would just complicate the situation and probably do more harm than good.

He'd already visited the station yesterday and made good use of Inspector Nakamori's login information. He was now sure two of the names on his “maybe” list were definitely working with Snake, along with at least one out of two possible others. At this rate it would be more efficient to just assume that every new transfer to the taskforce was dirty. 

That was the sum total of his gain from the heist. Two and a half names, a fancy sapphire crossed off of his list of potential Pandoras, and confirmation that Snake hadn't killed his father himself. In exchange for a bullet graze, an impressive collection of contusions, quite possibly a minor concussion, the biggest threat to his identity since Inspector Nakamori got a good look at his face that first time, and his favorite hat. 

He'd expected the hat to crop up in evidence, but no luck so far. At least that meant he wouldn't have to switch out any DNA evidence this time; old Nakamori was getting downright diabolical with those security measures...

Kaito trailed Aoko up to the roof for lunch, but then she and Hakuba started eating something unspeakable, so he retreated to a safe distance. It was probably a good thing that Aoko had given up on him as a potential romantic partner, but did she really have to get together with _Hakuba_? Kaito wanted to say that he'd thought she had better taste than that, but if she did then Kaito himself probably never would have been in the running.

Akako found him while he was picking at his rice. 

“Hmm… your aura is particularly dull today, Kuroba,” she said, poking at the air ten inches to the side of his head. “It's not too late to become my slave, you know,” she added, then laughed in her typically creepy manner.

He was pretty sure she was mostly over the whole slave thing, and was just saying that out of habit, or as her idea of a joke. He and Akako had an unspoken kind of understanding these days: she didn't try to kill him with magic, and he indulged her eccentricities every once in a while. Mostly this involved occasionally consulting her about the supernatural, with proper deference and respect for her status as Master of the Arcane, of course. He was eternally grateful that she seemed to prefer to exercise her sense of drama through vaguely sinister allusions, and didn't feel the need to actually demonstrate her powers more often.

So he figured he might as well ask, “Hey, Akako, do you know any magic to make a person forget something?”

She raised an eyebrow, but answered agreeably enough. “Of course. Plenty. Let's see… there's compulsion spells, and potions to scour the spirit — though those are usually pretty indiscriminate. Or a cursed amulet might work. All kinds of things.” She examined her blood-red nails faux-casually. “I didn't think you'd be interested in that kind of mind control, but if you are, I could definitely be persuaded to help you out again. For a price, of course,” she added slyly. "And this type of thing would cost you a lot more than just a couple quarts of blood."

Kaito shuddered involuntarily. Yeah, no, that was definitely a bad idea. “Nevermind. I appreciate the thought, Akako, but forget I asked.”

She pouted at him in exaggerated disappointment. “Suit yourself, Kuroba. But if you change your mind, you know where to find me. It's always a pleasure doing business with you.” She flashed him another smirk before wandering away.

It did make Kaito feel a little better to know that he wasn't yet _that_ desperate.

* * *

KID showed up early to the scheduled meeting on Sunday, mostly because he wanted to scope the place out and make sure Mouri-san hadn't picked up any followers. He didn't really think she would go back on her word and blab, but she was demonstrably a pretty terrible liar, and whatever else Conan was, he was a great detective.

He didn't have to wait long. Mouri-san showed up early, too, and fretted her way through three cups of tea and a blueberry muffin. Meanwhile KID took his time scouting out the surrounding area; he didn't want to be noticed before he was ready. But it didn't take long to spot Mouri-san's pint-sized shadow.

Mouri-san was seated at a table right in the middle of the cafe’s crowded outdoor seating area, and Conan was on his knees, hiding badly behind a pair of large potted palms that sat on the floor towards the edge of the courtyard. He was directly behind Mouri-san, so she wasn’t likely to spot him, but he was already collecting a few odd looks from some of the other customers.

Now, what to do? What to do…

There was an older woman seated at an outermost table who was watching Conan with a particularly dark frown on her face. She had a fluffy little dog on a leash hanging off one arm — one off those yappy, excitable ones — and an invitingly open purse hanging off the other. KID sidled casually past her, reaching in and grabbing the first thing he could, then knelt down as if picking something up off the floor.

“Excuse me, ma’am, I think you dropped this.” It was a keychain, with no key attached, made out of bits of felt glued together, vaguely in the form of some animal. The little dog, maybe, if you squinted and really used your imagination.

“Oh, thank you, dear. My granddaughter made that for me — I would have hated to lose it.” Perfect.

“It’s pretty cute, your granddaughter must be pretty talented.” Which was definitely overstating things, but in Kaito’s experience that wouldn’t make a difference. People loved to brag about their kids. “How old is she?"

"She's a creative little thing, that's for sure. Sharp as a tack. Just turned five and already driving her mother crazy drawing on the walls or trying to stick her brother's pet turtle in the toilet." She sounded fond. "You can pet Hector, if you'd like," she added. "He doesn't bite."

'Hector' was currently sniffing KID's shoelaces and wagging his stubby little tail so fast his whole butt shook with the motion, so Kaito obligingly crouched down and rubbed between his ears. Hector did his best to lick his hands, which seemed counterproductive.

"So she's about the same age as that little boy over there." Kaito took his time petting the dog, who rolled onto his back and seemed to reach new heights of ecstasy as Kaito rubbed his belly. He really was very cute.

"About the same, yes," the woman agreed. The frown was back in her voice.

KID glanced back up at Conan, who was still staring intently at Mouri-san, the little stalker. "I wonder who he's with. Such a little boy wouldn't be out here by himself, would he?"

The woman made a disgruntled sound of agreement, but KID was distracted by a waiter who was trying to avoid the crowd by walking around the clustered tables, making his way towards Conan.

He gave Hector one last scratch, then quickly but politely disengaged from the conversation.

He slipped between the tables, making his way a little closer to Mouri-san, but not so close as to be noticed, keeping to the edge of Conan's peripheral vision. This would be all about angles, and about timing.

The waiter was carrying a tray with some sort of elaborate dessert concoction topped with a generous amount of whipped cream — in other words, something safely cool and at least moderately sticky. KID got carefully into position under the pretext of looking for an open table, then waited until the waiter was just coming up behind Conan before calling out and waving, making sure to smile sweetly. "Excuse me, sir?"

Predictably, the man looked towards him and altered his path slightly, and then tripped over Conan's legs where they were sticking out from behind his pathetically inadequate hiding place. The waiter went down hard (Kaito winced a little guiltily), the dessert went flying, and the man, boy, and potted palms all ended up covered in unidentifiable bits of confectionery.

Hector's owner was the first to respond to the scene. She helped the waiter up, brushing at his clothes ineffectually — it looked like he had a scraped palm, but was otherwise alright. Then they both turned towards Conan.

After that, it wasn't long until Conan was being led away from the cafe with a hand firmly on his shoulder, while Hector did his very best to tangle them both in his leash, his little tail wagging madly.

Meanwhile, ten feet away, Mouri-san remained completely unaware of the commotion that had just taken place.

After that it was the work of a moment to brush by the back of her chair on his way to the counter, and gently pluck the suspicious little listening device off of the back of her belt. He quickly worked out how to disable it as he waited in line to order, while pretending to check his text messages. It wasn't a design he'd seen before, so he didn't want to destroy it completely. Waste not, want not.

Then it was just a matter of collecting his dessert and joining Ran at the table outside.

It was kind of adorable how oblivious she was. It was like she'd expected KID to meet her in full costume, hat and cape included. He'd briefly considered going as Kudou Shinichi again, but there were too many unknowns and potential complications in that scenario. No, it seemed most prudent to meet Mouri-san as just another Generic High School Girl. He'd actually been pretty lazy with his disguise, since she already knew what he looked like. Definitely not his best effort, but apparently effective enough to be hilarious. 

“You could have said something,” Ran complained, once she finally realized who it was she was talking to.

“This was more fun.” The Kaitou KID enjoyed Ran-chan's petulant pout while Katou Kei-chan enjoyed a delicious slice of chocolate cake. If nothing else good resulted from this meeting, at least there'd been cake.

Ran pouted harder. “Well, I'm glad you're feeling better, at least,” she muttered.

Kei-chan was very chipper once she got over any initial shyness, KID decided. “I am, Ran-chan!” she replied sunnily. “Thank you for asking.”

He watched Ran sigh, catch the attention of a waiter, and order a fourth cup of tea as well as her own slice of cake. Then he went on the offensive.

“So how have _you_ been doing, Ran-chan?” Kei-chan asked cheerily.

“I — fine. I'm not the one who was shot a week ago.”

Kei-chan giggled, and waved her fork dismissively. “I was hardly _shot_, Ran-chan. It was just a little graze. And I wasn't the only one injured — are your cuts healing okay?” she asked solicitously.

Ran sighed again, but nodded agreeably enough. “Yes, they're fine. Most of the scabs have fallen off already. I doubt I'll even have any scars.”

“That's good. Some of them were positioned a little awkwardly. I know I hate it when I get a scrape or a bruise somewhere where my bra strap rubs on it.”

Ran nodded along in sympathy before she seemed to catch herself, and promptly turned pink. “You — !” she sputtered incoherently.

“What's the matter, Ran-chan?” Kei-chan asked innocently.

“As if you wear bras!” she hissed.

“Of course I do, Ran-chan. Why wouldn't I?” She leaned in conspiratorially. “Are you saying you _don't_? My, how scandalous!” 

KID resisted the urge to follow that up with a creepy, girlish cackle. His Generic High School Girl was already skewing a little too much like Akako and not enough like Keiko. But was it his fault that Ran-chan was so easy to tease? He had to take his fun where he could get it, and Ran had a tendency to turn a very satisfying red color.

Disappointingly, all Ran did was cover her face with her hands, and by the time the waiter returned with her order, she was composed enough to thank him.

She fixed KID with a steely stare as soon as he left. “Now, KID-san —”

“Kei-chan,” KID interrupted.

Ran blinked. “Um, right, Kei-chan. Kei-chan, I thought about what we talked about last week, and I realized I still have a lot of questions. And I was hoping you would answer some of them for me.”

Hoping. How diplomatic of her. “Sure, Ran-chan! What would you like to know?”

“Uh, okay.” She looked like she hadn't expected it to be that easy. “Okay, first, I was wondering about the timing of the whole thing. You said that the original — the original _you_,” she stuttered. “Your dad. Can I assume it was your dad?”

KID fixed a smile on Kei-chan's face and nodded politely.

“He disappeared nine years ago,” Ran continued, wincing a little. “So that was when he died, right?”

Kei-chan nodded again.

“But you didn't become… _you_, until, like, less than two years ago.”

“I'm flattered you think so highly of my skills, Ran-chan, but I could have hardly done what I do when I was _eight_.”

“No, I know — so it was just that you were too young? Nothing in particular happened?”

Kei-chan took a sip of tea while KID considered. He might as well tell her something, if only for the novelty value. Kaito had never really had a chance to talk about this with anyone. At least not with anyone who wasn't already intimately involved with the situation, like his mom and Jii-chan, but even there they didn't really talk about it so much as around it.

“I didn't actually know my dad was 'the original me’ until I was almost sixteen. And I didn't know he had been murdered until then, either.”

“Oh. So then you became KI —” she cut herself off mid-word. “_You_. You became you to figure out what had happened to him, right?” she guessed.

Kei-chan hummed her agreement, then pointed at Ran-chan's plate with her fork. “You should really try your cake before it gets stale, Ran-chan. It's very good.”

Ran scooped up a forkful absentmindedly, but then just let it hang in the air. “But isn't that a really roundabout way of doing things? Why didn't you go to the police when you found out?”

Kei-chan tapped her own fork against her bottom lip in exaggerated thoughtfulness. “Well, Ran-chan, I guess it just didn't occur to me to turn my own father — who I idolized, by the way — in to the cops for theft. Posthumously. Besides, they'd ruled his death an accident, and I didn't actually have any proof. I still don't have any real proof.”

“So how _did_ you find out it was murder?”

“Pretty much the same way you found out, Ran-chan. Snake showed up one day, mistook me for my dad, made some threats, and pretty much confessed.“ Well, technically Jii-chan had told him before that, but he was trying to keep Jii-chan out of it. This was close enough to the truth. “You would have liked what I did next. I followed him to his hideout, where he and his boss and a bunch of minions were all waving guns around, discussing their dastardly deeds. So I figured, this is all obviously very illegal, why not get the police to arrest all these villains _for_ me? I happened to have a handy police transmitter attached to the latest trinket I'd picked up. The solution to my problems seemed obvious. But somehow it didn't work out.”

“The police didn't show up?”

“Mmm, no, of course they showed up. But by that point all the bad guys had fled, somehow taking all evidence of their wrongdoings with them. If only it'd been that easy.”

They contemplated that for a minute, before KID broke the mood with a deliberately chipper, “Any other questions, Ran-chan?”

“Oh! Uh, yes.” She actually started counting off on her fingers, as if consulting a mental list. “Last time you said you'd gotten drugged at the heist. How did that happen? I didn't think the police did that kind of thing.”

“Ran-chan, I can't possibly tell you that!” Kei-chan exclaimed, scandalized, waving her hand as if to dismiss the thought. “It's too embarrassing. It would damage my professional reputation.”

Ran mouthed the words “professional reputation” to herself, before raising a sceptical eyebrow. “What, did you accidentally huff too much of your own sleeping gas?”

Kei-chan pouted. “That's mean, Ran-chan. And here I thought we were friends.”

Ran looked like she was going to deny that for a moment, before changing her mind. “Right. Well.” She moved on to the next finger. “Why do you go after gemstones, anyway? You don't keep them. Conan said once that you're looking for something?”

“Well, you know, it's not easy to find jewelry to match my outfit. I know what you're thinking: _but white goes with everything, Kei-chan!_ You _would_ think that, but I guess I just need something that really complements my complexion. Brings out my eyes, you know, but doesn't overpower the gleam of my monocle.” He sighed heavily. “No luck so far, unfortunately.”

“You're not taking this seriously,” Ran said flatly.

“What an accusation, Ran-chan. Fashion is very serious,” he said seriously.

He was saved from having to come up with any more bullshit by a joyful shout, and then the sudden, completely unexpected appearance of one Suzuki Sonoko.

“Ran! It _is_ you — just who I was looking for! You're not going to believe this: you know that shoe place by that bakery you like, the one with the really cute purple pumps? They’re having a buy one get one free sale! We have to go. C'mon, before all the good stuff sells out.”

Ran bit her lip. “I can't, Sonoko. KI — I mean, Kei-chan and I already have plans.”

“Kei-chan?” she asked, seeming to notice KID for the first time. She gave him a sceptical once-over from head to toe.

“Yes. K — Katou Kei-chan. She's a new friend of mine,” Ran introduced politely. KID felt Kei-chan's smile freeze on his face. He really should have come up with a better cover identity. “Kei-chan, this is one of my best friends, Suzuki Sonoko.”

“Nice to meet you, Sonoko-san,” he said. 

Sonoko returned his smile with a flat stare, and he let it falter, which seemed to satisfy her sense of dominance. She turned back to Ran with a theatrical sigh. 

“She’s just going to have to come along, then. These kinds of opportunities don't come around everyday, you know.”

Ran hesitated. “I guess. If Kei-chan is okay with it.”

KID considered his options. This was a good opportunity to ditch Ran, but all that would do was delay the inevitable, and leave the situation even more out of his control. The thought didn't appeal. 

Besides, a few of his female disguises probably _could_ use a new pair of shoes.

* * *

Shopping with Suzuki Sonoko was an experience. For someone who was by all accounts filthy rich, she was pretty excited about a sale at what turned out to be a mid-range boutique. 

“What do you think of these, Ran?” Sonoko asked, holding out a pair of strappy golden wedges. “Do you think they'd go with that one dress I have with the gold buttons?”

“I thought you already bought a pair of sandals to go with that dress?”

“I did, but those are flats,” she said dismissively, searching through the shelves of boxes for the right size. A shop attendant hovered anxiously nearby, but Sonoko ignored her. She had insisted they didn't need any assistance. ”What if I want to wear the dress but I need to be taller?”

“Why would you need to be taller?” Ran wondered, slipping on a pair of low-heeled, lavender pumps with pointed toes. 

“That's something only a tall person would say. What if I need to get something from a high shelf?”

“Then you stand on your tippy-toes. You're not that much shorter than me, Sonoko.” She stood up, grimaced, and immediately sat back down again. “These are no good.”

Sonoko glanced over. “That's a shame, they're pretty cute. And I can't stand on my tippy-toes all the time.”

“What if you need to see over a crowd?” Kaito offered.

“Yes, exactly!” Sonoko agreed, pulling out a box, looking inside, and shoving it back on the shelf. “What if I'm at a heist, but I can't see KID-sama because everybody in front of me is too tall? See, Ran, Kei-chan gets it.” She waved over at where Kaito was buckling the straps on a pair of shiny black three-inch heels. 

They had a bit of a platform, so the effect was exaggerated, but they were actually pretty comfortable, as far as these things went. Kaito tried out a few steps, then did a neat pirouette.

Sonoko squealed. “Those are adorable, Kei-chan! You should definitely get them.”

“They're not very practical, though,” Kaito said regretfully. Not even so much because of the height — Kaito was pretty confident in his sense of balance — but because of the buckles. They would take too long to put on and take off, and in his line of work a few seconds sometimes made all the difference. 

Besides, he was already fairly tall for a woman, and very few female disguises would require him to be taller. He just hoped he wouldn't grow much more, or his options would become a lot more limited. Soon he might have a hard time buying women's shoes at all. At least Ran was in the same boat; they wore the same shoe size.

“Sure they are,” Sonoko disagreed. “It's always practical to be sexy. Ran, back me up here.”

“They are definitely sexy.” She had an odd look on her face, something a little stupefied. Maybe she was picturing her boyfriend, Kudou?

KID smirked at her, leaning against a nearby shelf and bending a knee up in a sexy pose. She immediately flushed and looked away. 

Too easy. Maybe Sonoko had a point.

“Maybe you should let the lady help you, Sonoko?” Ran asked her friend, who was still sorting through boxes.

“No, I've got this.” She peeked under another lid. “Ooh, Ran, these come in red, too. You should try them on — they’d go with half your wardrobe.”

* * *

In the end Sonoko picked out four pairs of heels, Kaito two pairs of flats to go with the black stilettos, and Ran just a single pair: the strappy red wedges to match Sonoko's gold ones. Ran and Kaito had agreed to combine their purchase and split the cost to take advantage of the buy-one-get-one deal.

The whole experience was surprisingly enjoyable. Kaito was used to shoe shopping alone, for obvious reasons, but it was nice to have someone there to offer a second opinion, or to share complaints about what kind of mutant feet some of the shoe designers expected their customers to have. And he'd forgotten how much he liked Sonoko. Once upon a time he'd spent quite a bit of time chatting with her over the internet, almost entirely for the joy of it.

After they were done with the shoe store, they decided to walk around outside to see if anything else caught their eye, enjoying the bright sunshine and cool wind, dragging their purchases along behind them. Which was basically the girl version of loitering aimlessly and shooting the breeze, except more ambulatory and generally better accessorized.

“We can wear our matching wedges to the next KID heist!" Sonoko was saying as they waited patiently for the light to change at an empty crosswalk. "Kei-chan, you should totally come too! Did I tell you, Ran? Uncle Jirokichi got another jewel to challenge KID with. It's some sort of big emerald this time — he showed it to me this morning — and I think he's planning to hold the heist in that resort we have up in the mountains." She swung her bag wide as she twirled dramatically, gesturing up at some invisible landscape. "Wouldn't that be romantic? The crisp mountain air, the moonlight filtering through the trees, gently illuminating KID-sama's proud yet graceful bearing, his cape swaying majestically in the breeze…” She sighed wistfully, before dropping her dreamy demeanor. “That little brat isn't invited, though. Whenever we take him with us anywhere we always end up finding a dead body, which completely ruins the mood.”

“It's not that bad,” Ran defended half-heartedly.

“It _is_ that bad. First Shinichi and now the kid — maybe it's _you_ who's cursed, Ran. Cursed to always be surrounded by mystery-attracting detective-wannabes.”

“Cursed?” Kaito asked curiously. He'd thought it was unusual how many murder cases Conan ended up involved in, but now he wondered how literally she meant that.

“Yeah! Ran has this little brat living with her who fancies himself a detective, and it seems like whenever he goes out anywhere someone ends up being murdered. And not just normal murder, but, like, locked-room murders, and weird setups with string and pulleys, and elaborately staged suicides. Ran, tell her,” she urged.

“Normal murders?” Ran asked instead, as they finally crossed the street.

“You know, the kind where you stab your lover in a fit of jealous, fiery passion.” This was said with a little too much enthusiasm for comfort. Ran and Kaito exchanged glances. Sonoko noticed, and rolled her eyes. “What, don't give me that look, _I'm_ not going to stab anyone. And Makoto isn't the type for jealous rages. The point is that the cases the brat gets involved in aren't normal, and it's not normal how many people get murdered around him in the first place. I think half the reason Ran's dad is so famous is because Conan attracts all these crazy cases for him to solve. It's just lucky the brat wants to be a detective, or he'd be miserable otherwise.

“And before Conan," Sonoko continued, "Ran's husband did pretty much the same thing. It's probably a good thing he fucked off somewhere, Ran, just imagine if he and Conan were in the same place. They'd have to declare a state of national emergency.”

“You're married, Ran-chan?” Kei-chan asked, surprised.

“No! I'm not, Sonoko is just delusional.”

“Ran just has self-esteem issues, Kei-chan, because that jerk disappeared like a year ago and hardly ever even calls.”

“Is this Kudou Shinichi we're talking about?” KID prompted, since Sonoko was in a talkative mood, and who was he to scorn a free source of insider information.

“Yes! Ran's estranged husband, mystery freak Kudou Shinichi.”

Ran grimaced. “We're not estranged, and he's not my husband, and we're not even dating. But actually, Shinichi is a pretty nice person. He's very honorable, and he always keeps his word, and he's a great detective. They even call him the Sherlock Holmes of the modern era. Right, Sonoko?”

“I mean, I guess, but it's not like this detective thing is that hard in the first place. Deduction Queen Sonoko has solved a few mysteries herself, you know,” she bragged, but she had an odd, uncertain look on her face, and she quickly changed the subject. 

Kaito could guess what was going on there. The first time he'd seen Conan perform his creepy human-puppet deduction show it had been Sonoko who'd gotten tranquilized. It was probably even creepier from her perspective.

“Anyway,” Sonoko continued, “Uncle Jirokichi said he was gonna publish the challenge in Thursday's paper, so the heist is probably going to be next weekend. So make sure you guys are free. Oh! Maybe we can make a whole weekend out of it? A sleepover?”

“I don't know, Sonoko," Ran replied, slowing down unconsciously. "There's no guarantee that KID is actually going to show up.”

“Don't be a party-pooper, Ran. He always shows up.” Sonoko glanced back, hooked Ran's arm, and started marching her back up the sidewalk.

“Yeah,” KID agreed, following behind. “KID-sama is too polite to refuse an invitation and let all those preparations go to waste.”

“Exactly! Are you a Kaitou KID fan, Kei-chan?” Sonoko actually stopped dead in her enthusiasm, turning back towards Kaito, which caused Ran to stumble slightly.

“Of course,” Kei-chan enthused. “KID-sama is my favorite magician.”

“Even so,” Ran cut in, “even if he _wants_ to show up doesn't mean he'll be _able_ to. Like, what if he's too injured to show up?”

“That doesn't seem very likely, Ran-chan,” Kei-chan replied.

“Yeah, KID-sama is too good to get injured. Where's this coming from, Ran? Did you see something at the last heist?”

“What — no! I just, uh, I think we shouldn't get too excited, because it's possible that something or some_one_ might prevent KID from showing up,” she said meaningfully.

“What, like if someone was blackmailing him?” Kei-chan asked sceptically.

“Yes, exactly like that!”

“That's very specific, Ran,” said Sonoko, her brow furrowed. “Are you thinking of writing some fanfiction? Because you know I support the arts one hundred percent, but you have to be able to separate fantasy from reality. Just because you think it would be hot for someone to blackmail KID-sama away from a life of crime and into sweet, sexy domestic bliss, that doesn't mean it's actually likely to happen.”

Ran groaned and covered her face with her free hand. Sonoko continued undaunted. “But if you're interested in that sort of thing, I've been meaning to tell you. I was on one of KID-sama's fansites the other night, and I came across this crossover story about High School Detective Kudou Shinichi being swept up in a whirlwind romance with dashing older —”

“Stop! No, Sonoko, stop, I don't need to hear this!” Ran tried to physically stop Sonoko from talking by covering her mouth with both hands, her shopping bag thumping Sonoko's chest.

KID ignored her antics. “Ooh, I think I've read that one. The one where Kudou's secretly working undercover for Interpol, and then halfway through he gives it all up for a life free from the control of greedy corporate interests? With that thing with the tree and the cello, right?“

Sonoko deftly twisted out of Ran's reach. “Yeah, it was good, wasn't it? Of course, they got Shinichi's personality completely wrong — he's way more of a jerk in real life, and I don't think he would really let himself get seduced into fighting against the establishment, either. He's too much of a stick-in-the-mud.”

“I don't know about that,” KID replied. “I had more of an issue with the way they depicted KID-sama.”

“Oh? What was wrong with that? I know the name and a lot of other information has to be made up, but I thought the author did a pretty good job with it.”

“I mean, I guess they did,” KID hedged, “but I think it's obvious that KID-sama is not actually, you know… when you really think about it…”

“Not actually what?” Sonoko asked, intrigued. Even Ran looked interested, though she was still half-heartedly covering her own ears.

“Not actually a man,” he finished. 

Sonoko's jaw dropped, Ran's eyes went wide, and KID cackled internally. 

“I mean, it _is_ obvious, isn't it?” Kei-chan continued earnestly. “It's much easier for a woman to disguise herself as a man than the other way around, and KID-sama has impersonated a lot of people of both genders. People only assume she's a man because that's what she looks like in the white outfit, but there isn't really a reason to think that's not a disguise, too, is there?”

“I never thought of it that way,” said Sonoko slowly, “but you do have a point. Men are generally bigger than women and it has to be easier to make yourself seem bigger than smaller… but on the other hand, KID-sama is a great enough magician that I'm sure he could pull it off somehow, and he might just be kind of short for a man.” She bit her lip, clearly torn. “Ran, you've seen him up close more times than I have. What do you think?”

Ran looked like she was trying to suppress some sort of strong emotion. Laughter, hopefully, instead of rage. Kei-chan flashed her an innocently hopeful smile. She twitched. “I really couldn't say,” she finally choked out, then pointed randomly at a display window. "Oh, look at that — that dress. It's so… orange."

Sonoko raised an eyebrow, but turned obligingly towards the storefront. "Ugly, you mean? It's okay, Ran, you can say it. It looks like pumpkin soup six days past its best-by date."

Ran let out a sigh of relief as Sonoko allowed herself to be distracted, and shot Kaito a dirty look behind her friend's back.

Kaito smiled beatifically back at her.


	7. Ran

They spent a while critiquing the fashion sense of various mannequins, and then Sonoko had to leave, since she had plans to meet her sister for an early dinner. She had been subdued and contemplative after Kid’s little ‘revelation,’ at least by her own standards, and she pulled Ran aside before leaving.

“Hey, Ran, didn't Shinichi first disappear not long after he helped out at that Kid heist with the clocktower? And if Kid-sama is a woman, you don't think it’s possible…” she trailed off suggestively.

Ran groaned. “Now who's confusing fantasy with reality, Sonoko?”

Sonoko seemed to rally herself. “No, you're right, of course. Kid-sama would never go for a jerk like Shinichi. No offense, Ran,” she added.

Which was great. Not offensive at all. And the fact that Kid himself was standing ten feet away — tucking a few strands of hair behind his ear while admiring a display window full of sparkly handbags — really added something to the conversation.

She'd thought it was weird when people she had spent time with had turned out to be Kid in disguise. Like when Kid had spent the whole day disguised as her dad during the Sunset Mansion case, and she'd never suspected a thing. Or that time he'd impersonated Sonoko's internet friend at that online magic club meet-up. Or the time he'd disguised as Detective Takagi and helped solve that murder with the missing painting. But it had been even weirder watching him charm the socks off of Sonoko in the guise of a complete stranger, with full knowledge of who he actually was. And Sonoko had no idea.

It was extra weird that they got along so well. Maybe because Sonoko usually took a while to warm up to new people, or maybe just because Kid looked so much like Shinichi, and Shinichi and Sonoko had always rubbed each other the wrong way.

But Ran wouldn't let herself get distracted. As soon as Sonoko was out of sight, she got straight to the point. 

“I thought we agreed you wouldn't be stealing anymore.”

“I hardly think this counts, Ran-chan," he replied immediately. "You heard Sonoko-san, Uncle Jirokichi bought that emerald especially for _me_. It's practically a gift. How could I possibly refuse such a generous gesture?”

“Easily. Just don't show up.” She latched onto his elbow and pulled him closer, as if to physically keep him under her control if persuasion failed. That was foolish, though, so she forced herself to take a deep breath and loosen her grip; she didn't want to give him bruises. “Look, I'm not going to argue with you about the morality of it all, because Suzuki-san _is_ literally asking for it, but there's still the issue of Snake and whoever he's working with. What's stopping him from coming back to finish the job?”

“That's where preparation and planning come in, Mouri-san. I know I might not have given you that impression last time, but I_ am_ rather good at what I do. I haven't gotten shot yet —”

“Killed, you mean, because you've definitely been shot.”

Kid rolled his eyes. “Killed, then. I've been doing this for almost two years —”

“One and a half,” Ran muttered.

“- and I'm a professional. I'm not that easy to kill.”

“I don't think you can call yourself a professional if you return everything you steal. You can't actually be making any money off of the heists.” She'd looked it up. Kid sometimes returned the things he stole in roundabout ways, or to owners he considered more legitimate, but there was no record of him keeping _anything_ he stole. At least not since his return eighteen months ago.

“Now you're just splitting hairs, Ran-chan,” he complained. “But speaking of money, just think of how much of it Old Man Suzuki probably already sunk into this heist. Not just the jewel, but logistics, extra security, publicity… it would be practically criminal to let all of that go to waste.”

“He can afford it,” she replied, unimpressed. “No amount of money is worth your life.” She had the supreme satisfaction of watching him struggle to come up with a comeback for that, before she pressed her advantage. “Besides, what if it's not just you, next time? You're the one who said he's not above taking hostages, or threatening bystanders.”

“That's a two-way street. What if he gets violent because I _don't_ show up, to lure me out?”

They'd walked far enough that the boutiques and cafes of the shopping district were starting to peter out in favor of residential buildings, and Ran steered them in the direction of a nearby park.

“Is that likely?” she asked.

“I wouldn't put it past him,” he muttered darkly.

Ran's first instinct was to involve the police, but she already knew Kid wouldn't go for that. She wished Shinichi was here; he was so much better at coming up with logical arguments than she was.

“Okay, how about this: you come with me and Sonoko to the heist — but only to keep an eye on the situation. Kid doesn't make an appearance.”

“But I need to —” he cut himself off, visibly frustrated.

“Need to what? Why is this so important to you?”

He didn't say anything for a while, but he looked conflicted, and she could feel the muscles of his arm tense under her grip. 

She bit down on her tongue. She would let him work out whatever this was. She had the feeling that if she pressed him too much now he would deflect on reflex. Honestly, trying to have a serious conversation with him was like pulling teeth. You'd think that someone who clearly dedicated so much time and effort into risking his life for a cause would be able to talk about it for more than two consecutive minutes at a time.

Finally he turned to her, his face unusually serious, and asked, “Ran-chan, do you believe in magic?”

That wasn't anything like what she had been expecting. He was a magician, was he talking about stage magic? Was that even the kind of thing you could believe in?

He seemed to sense her confusion. Instead of saying anything else, he guided her towards a nearby bench and pulled them both down. He turned to face her, folding his legs neatly beneath his skirt, and pulled a deck of cards out of nowhere.

After a quick but showy shuffle, he fanned them out. “Pick a card, Ran-chan.”

Ran had no idea where this was going, but she figured she might as well play along. She picked a card. It was the two of clubs.

“Now put it back in the deck.” Ran did so, watching his hands carefully. He used one long, elegant finger to push her card even with the others, then did another quick, basic shuffle. Then he turned the top card over. The two of clubs.

“I know how to do that one, though,” she said. “Sonoko showed me. You flip the deck over so that the card that gets put back in is facing the wrong direction.”

He gave her a smile at that, the sweet kind that seemed to make his dark eyes sparkle. Kei-chan's dark eyes. “That's one way to do it,” he agreed. “I actually just kept a little gap between your card and the rest of the deck, and when I shuffled I made sure it made it to the top.” 

Now that she thought about it, he hadn't actually looked at the deck before he'd pulled her card up. Sonoko had fumbled through her cards for a good thirty seconds. But it wasn't surprising that Kid was talented at this sort of thing.

He shuffled the cards again, this time throwing in a few moves she'd never seen outside of movies set in Las Vegas casinos. He fanned them out again, and she picked another card. The ace of spades. 

He instructed her to place the card on top of the deck in his hand this time, then to help him cut the deck three times. Another fast, impressive shuffle, and he handed the whole thing over to her.

“Now cut the deck again, Ran-chan, and flip the top card over.” She did so. It was the five of diamonds.

Kid gently grabbed her hand from below, and tilted the deck towards himself slightly, squinting down at it. “Hmm, that doesn't look right,” he said. Then he quickly, casually waved his other hand over the cards once, and as if by magic, the five of diamonds turned into the ace of spades. 

Ran stared at the deck in her hand, at Kid's hand still wrapped around her own, trying to figure out the trick. She had nothing.

“Okay, that was impressive,” she said finally. “How did you do that?”

“Simple, Ran-chan. I palmed it at the beginning. Everything after that was just distraction.” 

He showed her how he had kept the card hidden against the back of his hand by wedging two of the corners between his fingers, and how smoothly he could use his thumb to flip it around to the front. She watched him do it several times in plain sight at a fraction of the original speed, and it still looked a little impossible.

Then he reassembled the deck and gave it back to her. “Shuffle those, pick a card, and shuffle it back in. And make sure you don't let me see it.”

Ran took her time, determined to spot the trick this time. The cards looked like normal playing cards, the same brand her mom used to play solitaire. She picked out the queen of hearts, but didn't even really remove it from the deck, making sure to keep the whole thing close to her chest and angled away from Kid, in case he was trying to spy on her choice with some reflective surface or something. But he didn't even seem to be paying much attention to her. She shuffled the deck thoroughly, then held it out. His fingers brushed against hers fleetingly as he took it back from her.

He cut the deck once, and flipped the top card. The queen of hearts.

Ran laughed despite herself. “So what was it this time? I know you didn't palm anything, and you couldn't have marked the card I chose before I shuffled. So how did you know what card I picked? And how did you make it pop up?”

Kid started shuffling the deck again, casually, keeping his eyes on the cards. “I guessed,” he said.

“You guessed,” she repeated dubiously.

He hummed in something like agreement. “I guessed. I cut the deck and flipped a card completely at random. It was pure luck.” He finally looked up at her. “Or, I guess you might say, magic.”

He let that percolate for a moment. Ran tried to figure out if he was serious. He seemed serious. And she really couldn't see how he could have set up that last trick. But she wasn't Shinichi, she couldn't have explained the second trick before he'd shown her, either.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “What are you trying to say here? Are you saying you can do real magic?”

“No,” he replied, then bit his lip. “I don't know, maybe, a little bit. But that's not the point.”

“Then what is the point?” she asked, making sure to keep her voice calm and patient. He was still playing around with the cards, his fingers flipping through them faster than she could parse, for all that he didn't seem to be paying any attention to what his hands were doing.

“The point is that I'm a magician, Ran-chan. I know how to spot the wires, how to pick apart the way a trick is done. And sometimes there is no trick.” He flicked his hands, and the cards disappeared. Then he grimaced, and showed her where he had the deck tucked up inside his sleeve. “So I ask you again, Mouri-san, do you believe in magic?”

Ran folded her arms, and tried to consider it logically. She believed in ghosts, kind of. Or maybe she was just scared of ghosts, because there was always, in the back of her mind, the knowledge that she was being irrational. The expectation that someone would provide a better explanation eventually. And they almost always had, so far. It was different, somehow, listening to the Kaitou Kid try to sell you on magic. It didn't seem like his kind of prank. He was too subdued, for all that his card tricks were flashy.

“I don't _disbelieve_ in magic,” she said finally.

He frowned. “I guess that's going to have to be enough. I was always a sceptic, myself, but then — well, some proof is hard to dismiss.”

He swept a hand absentmindedly through his hair — his wig, before running afoul of the butterfly clip. He reached up with his other hand to carefully remove it, before trying to blindly fix Kei-chan's hairstyle. It didn't make much difference, really, and he gave up on it quickly.

Without the clip there to draw the eye, he looked even more like Shinichi. Like himself. Still distinctly female, though. She was almost used to seeing him in the disguise. He'd kept up the voice throughout the whole day, seemingly without any effort, and even now his mannerisms weren't anything that would seem odd on a teenaged girl. Assuming the teenaged girl happened to be a card shark.

He considered her for a moment longer, out of the corners of his eyes, and Ran tried to make herself seem like the kind of person who was ready to believe anything. Not gullible, but open to possibilities. She _was_ that sort of person, wasn't she?

Kid sighed, and stood abruptly. “Let's walk, Ran-chan.”

She gathered up her shopping bag and followed after him. This time, instead of grabbing his elbow, she took his hand. He looked over at her, startled, but it was probably a more natural way for two girls to walk together than what they'd been doing before. Hand-holding wasn't anything she was prone to, usually, but she'd seen her classmates do it often enough. In any case, Kid didn't seem to object. He just gave her hand a little squeeze and led them down a path that circled a small pond overgrown with algae.

“You know how I told you about when I first met Snake? When I followed him to his boss’s place?” he asked eventually. Ran nodded, and he continued, “Well, I found out something else that night.” He licked his lips. “It's a little bit crazy, and I'm not even sure it really exists, but _they_ certainly seemed to think so. Enough to kill my dad over it. And after everything I've seen I can't even reassure myself that it's not _possible_ —” 

He broke off, and his face smoothed into a blank mask. Ran gave his hand an encouraging squeeze. An elderly couple was walking down the path towards them, and he waited until a while after they'd passed them before resuming.

“Anyway, they were looking for a doublet, a magical gem hidden within another large jewel, whose name was Pandora — do you know the legend about Pandora?” he asked, glancing over at her.

Ran wracked her brain. It definitely sounded familiar. “Something about a box that it's a bad idea to open?”

He nodded. “It's a Greek myth. In the most popular version she's the first woman, and the Greek gods gift her with a jar that contains all the evils of the world. Which she opens, obviously. Earlier myths paint her as more of an earth goddess type.”

He glanced over at her again, as if to make sure she was still following. She tried to look attentive and nonjudgmental.

“So, Pandora. The magical gemstone. It glows red in the moonlight, and when a specific comet passes by, it's supposed to ‘cry tears of immortality.’ That part I'm almost certain is bullshit. Not the immortality — I don't know about that — but the part about the comet. It just doesn't make sense from a historical perspective. And I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that whoever is really in charge was just sowing disinformation through the ranks. 

"But whatever it really is or does, they definitely believe it exists, and they're definitely looking for it. So I am too,” he finished.

Ran couldn’t completely keep the incredulity out of her voice. “You’re looking for a magical gem that glows in the moonlight.”

He winced. “Yes, I know it sounds stupid when you say it out loud. That's why I mostly avoid doing that.” He tried to pull his hand away, but she wouldn't let him.

“I didn't say I don't believe you,” she protested. “Even if magic doesn't exist, that just means the bad guys are crazy, not that I think you're lying.”

“And I'm crazy for going along with it,” he said, but he was no longer trying to let go of her hand.

“No, you're crazy for putting on a white cape and top hat and trying to use yourself as bait. Among other things.”

He laughed at that, and the sound was only a little bitter. “That's fair, probably.”

"That doesn't mean I'm going to let you do the heist," she said gently.

He puffed his cheeks out and sighed, and Ran could practically feel him forcing himself to relax. "No, I didn't think it would be that easy. But, Ran-chan, I can't just let this go. I _can't_."

“And I'm not saying you have to. Look, from what I understand, there's two things you're trying to accomplish: find this magic rock, and put Snake and whoever he works for in jail.”

“Can we not call it a magic rock?” Kid muttered.

“And pulling heists like you’ve been doing doesn’t seem like the best way to accomplish either of those goals." 

“But it does let me work on both of them at once, which is very efficient.”

And there it was. Their two minutes of serious conversation were up. Ran took a deep breath and persevered. He seemed to do better when they didn't have to make eye-contact, so when they came to the end of the path she led them into another loop around the pond. The area was pleasantly shady, anyway, and the pond only smelled a little bit.

"Have you considered that to catch criminals, you need a detective?" she asked. "I understand you don't trust the police, but Shinichi would be able to help. He's amazing at this sort of thing. I don't think he's ever come across a case he couldn't solve."

He looked at her sidelong for a long moment, then turned away before speaking. "Ran-chan, all other considerations aside, it's my understanding that Kudou Shinichi is unavailable."

Ran hesitated. That wasn't an argument she'd been prepared for, though she really should have been. "He's not unavailable. He's just away working on an important case right now. I talked to him just the other day."

"But he pulled out of school, and you haven't actually seen him in months." It wasn't a question. "This isn't something I would be comfortable talking about over the phone, Ran-chan, even if I _did _decide to trust your detective. And considering that the only time I've met him, he _shot_ at me, that doesn't seem very likely."

"Shinichi wouldn't do that," she protested.

"Maybe you don't know him as well as you think," he replied flatly, and she almost wished he was back to answering all her questions with deflections and stupid jokes. 

She did know Shinichi. She _did_.

But she didn't want to think about this anymore right now. She readjusted her grip on Kid's hand and gathered her thoughts. "Alright, we'll leave that for later. Let's talk about the heist."

"If you'd like." He was facing away from her again, watching a small group of geese waddle their way into the pond further up ahead.

She took another deep breath, and said, calmly and firmly, "So you'll come to the resort with Sonoko and me, but Kid won't make an appearance. He's retired." She waited for him to hum an acknowledgement before she continued. "So we'll monitor the situation, and if Snake shows up we'll — we'll alert the police or something. I'll do it, so you won't have to blow your cover."

She almost thought he was going to object to that, but he just watched the last of the geese hop into the water, disturbing the algae and immediately diving down to catch a tasty frog or something.

"And what about Conan?" he asked finally.

"What about him? You heard Sonoko, he's not invited."

He finally turned to her, raising an eyebrow. "You really think he'll let you go by yourself?"

Ran let out an offended huff. "He's a first-grader. He doesn't _let_ me do anything."

"Perhaps that was a poor choice of words. But do you mean to tell me that he _hasn't_ been following you around all week?"

Ran frowned at him, but she couldn't dispute that. "He's just jealous I got to spend time with Shinichi. He considers him something of a role model."

"More likely he's suspicious of our atypical behavior, and overprotective of you. How do the two of them normally interact, anyway?"

"I don't really know," she admitted reluctantly, "I've only seen them together a couple of times. But what does Conan even have to do with anything? Are you telling me you're scared of a seven-year-old?"

Kid treated her to a wounded pout. "Well, they don't call him the Kid Killer for nothing," he said with exaggerated dignity, "but more to the point, I won't be able to avoid the heist if your pint-sized terror exposes me to all and sundry halfway through."

"So I get Sonoko to actually enforce her ban for once. She always complains, but I think she feels sorry for him. But she'll go with it if I back her up."

But Kid shook his head immediately. "That won't work — Suzuki Jirokichi can overrule Sonoko, and he generally likes Conan."

"Then what do you suggest we do?"

He grimaced. "I guess we're going to have to work on my cover," he said, and then he quickly outlined a plan that was paranoid in its complexity, and Machiavellian in its interpersonal manipulations. It was an interesting glimpse inside Kid's head. 

Ran was a little skeptical that all of that was necessary, but she agreed to go along with it.

And then Kid spent the rest of their afternoon together trying to coach Ran in how to lie.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment on your way out!
> 
> Constructive criticism is welcome, encouraged, and very much appreciated -- just keep in mind I reserve the right not to implement your good advice. ;b


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